Support Group
by ThistleL
Summary: Crossover w/ HP, Naruto, GW, FMA, Yu-gi-oh! and STXI. The "submissives" in the each relationship get together and discuss their relationships and helpful hints at the very first meeting of Inter-dimensional Subs Support. Rated for language. Slash/Yaoi.
1. Subs Support

Disclaimer: If I owned Gundam Wing it'd be a lot less Relena centered. If I owned Naruto, a lot of the crap that happened wouldn't have. If I owned Fullmetal Alchemist, well, I like it the way it is - maybe more alchmey. If I owned Star Trek 2009, fangirls would be getting their wish right now. If I owned Harry Potter, the epilogue wouldn't have been forced and cookie cutter. If I owned Yu-gi-oh! it wouldn't have been so sad. Too bad I don't own any of these, huh? XD

Timelines: For Gundam wing, a few months after the wars. For Naruto, presumable after Naruto gets Sasuke back, if that indeed will ever happen. Fullmetal Alchemist is set early in the series, but set in the future in a more "blissful" future. Star Trek 2009 a few years after the first movie. Harry Potter a year after they grad' and Yu-gi-oh! in a special time where everything is okay.

Prompt: Just because we're the "submissive" in our relationships doesn't mean shit.  
Warnings: Yaoi  
Pairings: 1x2; 3x4; NaruSasu; EdxRoy; Spirk; Draco/Harry; Puzzleshipping

**Support Group**

Dr. Jael Anders carefully fixed the blue napkins on the long, rectangle table in the back of the room. The table held up many treasures beyond the blue napkins. It also held up juice cartons, liters of soda, platters of sandwiches, muffins, cheese, ham, tomatoes, celery, brownies, cookies, croissants and slices of oranges. The woman gazed at the table critically, hoping she hadn't forgotten anything at home or in the back of her car. She wanted – needed – this meeting to go perfectly.

This would be _the_ first inter-dimensional meeting. The very first of its kind. If this meeting went well, then it would open doors to similar meetings being held by various organizations. She knew for a fact the Cross Dimensional Witches were planning on holding their meeting for the following week if her meeting (and her partner's) was a success.

The meetings were support groups between the dimensions to help the similarly minded or situated to get to know each other and learn from each other and at the young age of twenty-eight, Dr. Anders had been chosen to host the first meeting. An honor.

But her nerves screamed otherwise. It was hard being under so much pressure, but her lover down the hall reassured her everything would go off without a hitch with a well timed text message. Breathing out hard, Dr. Anders waited for the clock to hit 7:55, no doubt when most people would be arriving for the first support groups even if the meeting was scheduled for 8:00.

She had placed seven chairs in the middle of the room, maybe two arms lengths from the snack table, in a circle. She hoped she made a good impression.

Minutes before the hour hand could strike the eight, her first "patient" walked into the room followed by another.

She recognized the braided man from his picture sent with his file, but not the young man with exotic eyes trailing him. However, there was never a doubt in her mind who he was. Heero Yuy. She had read Duo Maxwell's file with some curiosity, finding the fact someone who overcame so much was also so adjusted. His description of his boyfriend – how she knew Heero Yuy on sight – was extremely accurate and she only had momentary difficulties imagining the exotic Japanese man as a caring lover. What caught her attention, what made it easier to see what Mr. Maxwell described, was in the gentle way he looked at Mr. Maxwell and she smiled slightly to herself.

Their voices were quiet, but not obviously so. Dr. Anders had a feeling it was the normal volume they spoke to each other with. In order to give the two young men some semblance of privacy, Dr. Anders turned her back on them. Even if she could no longer see the men, she could hear their quiet voices. An illusion.

"Are sure you'll be okay here?" a slightly nasally voice asked. The concern in his voice made Dr. Anders smile slightly.

"I'm sure, now quite worrying so much! Or else you're gonna be late for your own group." A slightly more cheerful voice said. "And we promised to check it out for Trowa and Quatre for next week. You know how much Quat' wanted to come."

"Hn." Dr. Anders heard Mr. Yuy grunt.

Fabric rustled lightly. In her mind's eye, Dr. Anders imagined the more extroverted man hugging, possible kissing his lover. It warmed her heart and reminded her why she was holding the meeting. With her resolve back in place, Dr. Anders felt her heart lighten considerably.

"You can turn around now." Mr. Maxwell said cheerfully. "Thanks for the privacy, Ms."

Peering around, Dr. Anders was surprised to see Mr. Yuy was indeed gone. She hadn't even heard the door slam! Mr. Maxwell was grinning rather cheerfully and the woman with a degree in psychology observed the man.

He was in maybe his late teens and dressed in all black with that long braid of hair she was instantly envious of. He was slight in stature and she recalled reading from one of the briefs about his dimension. He was a pilot. A pilot where being small in size was better than being taller than a lumberjack.

"Not a problem, Mr. Maxwell." Dr. Anders smiled. "You may have a seat over…there?"

Another young man was already sitting on a metal chair, his arms crossed over his chest. He wore a dark navy blue long sleeve and if she squinted, she could see a hint of red and white on the back of his shirt, white shorts and blue sandals that snaked all the way up his legs to just below his knees. His hair composed of cowlicks and Dr. Anders only took a moment to place him. Sasuke Uchiha.

But that didn't explain how he got in…

"Gotchya." Mr. Mawell clicked his tongue and winked.

She watched the man walk to the circle of chairs, his braid swinging, until her attention was caught by a nervous looking teenager with shocking green eyes.

Dr. Anders was beginning to feel slightly average at each boy's attractive features.

"Er, is this room 306?" the boy asked.

"Yes, come right on in." Dr. Anders ushered.

She looked back towards the circle of chairs and noted Mr. Maxwell had taken a chair nearest to the snack table and shame filled her briefly.

"Go ahead and grab something to eat." She urged. "I'm not here to starve you."

"Thanks!" Mr. Maxwell yelled rather excitedly.

The man rushed from his seat and within moments had numerous treats piled on a paper plate. Her attention was stolen from the rather enthusiastic eater when the door slammed open – hitting the wall and denting it – and in entered a blonde shouting, "You fucking bastard!"

Worry instantly chewed her insides. A teenager with a medium blonde braid and petite height in a red jacket and black clothing, practically snarling and his fists clenched tightly glanced angrily around the room before stomping quite heavily to the circle of chairs. An older male, or so Dr. Anders assumed, laughed which made the blonde's face turn from pink to red.

Dr. Anders had her back turned on the other three men in the room, so hadn't gotten to see the pulled gun or sliver of silver or wooden stick before the three men hid the objects once more. Giving each other the eye all the while.

"Mr. Elric?" Dr. Anders asked hesitantly

The blonde's eyed her warily. "Yeah?"

"Um, have a seat and help yourself?" She asked.

Her nerves had returned. How the hell was she going to live through this?

She only had four of her six "patients." What made her think she could handle more than the ones she already had? She would have to tell the Cross Dimensional Witches to keep their groups small.

The next young man to show had the most impressive hair. It stood up in all manners of directions and was two pretty colors: reddish-purpleish and blonde. The owner of such outlandish hair was by far the youngest member of their group so far. He bowed politely, murmuring apologies for being late before meekly going to take a seat between Harry Potter (if her notes were right…) and an empty chair.

Shortly, like seconds later, the last member of their support group arrived. He was panting hard, like he had run there and Dr. Anders didn't doubt for a moment he did run. Captain Kirk wasn't exactly known for being on time unless his First Officer or Doctor McCoy forced him to be.

"Now that we're all here, please, get something to eat." Dr. Anders urged them again. Mr. Maxwell grinned again and got up for seconds. She had a feeling leftovers wouldn't be an issue. The others followed with excluding Mr. Uchiha.

She closed the door leading to their room and secured it. If the group down the hall was anything how she suspected this one would soon be, she didn't want interruptions.

She walked to the only empty chair, between Sasuke Uchiha and Yugi Mutuo. She settled herself on the metal chair as comfortable as she could and adjusted the notepad that contained topic questions meant to inspire discussions and her notes on each person and relationship.

"As you know, this is the first tri-monthly meeting of Inter-dimensional Subs Support." She smiled at the uncomfortable shifting from various men in the room. "My name is Dr. Jael Anders and I'm also considered the "submissive" in my relationship to Dr. Fae Bolton who is holding the Inter-dimensional Doms Support." She garnered a few interested looks at that. "I know as well as anyone else, the reason I was chosen by my peers, is being a submissive does not mean any of you are weak in any way, in any form."

"So, basically because we bend over, that doesn't mean shit?" Mr. Maxwell asked with a rather foxy grin.

"Yes, exactly." Dr. Anders laughed. "Now, why don't we have introductions?" She peered at them all and as one, they all seemed to squirm in their chairs. "Why don't we start with Captain Kirk, this dimension's host." Captain Kirk jerked his head up and smiled uneasily. "Just tell us a little about yourself and about your partner."

Jim Kirk smiled winningly at the group, his white teeth showing. He had a mild bruise on his face, already fading. He was wearing a black long sleeve undershirt and tight black cloth pants with high boots, like he had just gotten off the Enterprise and chucked off his Starfleet shirt in order to appear more casual.

"Well, I'm Captain James Tiberius Kirk. You can call me Jim or Kirk. Doesn't really matter to me." Kirk said and his blue eyes seemed to sparkle in good fun. "As most of you know, my dimension discovered how to cross the dimensions due to our advance technology," a snort from Duo Maxwell said what he thought of that idea "And my first officer is actually my, um, partner. He's a science kind of guy and a Vulcan, one of the humanoid species here." He stopped speaking, considered himself and then nodded with satisfaction.

"Very nice, Captain Kirk." Dr. Anders complimented.

"Just call me Kirk, Doc." Kirk smiled winsome at her.

"Kirk then," Dr. Anders nodded. "Why don't you go next?" The woman prodded the blonde next to Kirk.

"Alright." The blonde shrugged carelessly. Dr. Anders wondered if he was still smartening over his crass arrival. "I'm Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist. You can call me Ed. And my soon to be very _dead_ partner is my boss Colonel Roy Mustang, the Flame Alchemist. The bastard." Ed scowled slightly.

"Ed." Dr. Anders nodded. His issues slightly worried her. Their relationship couldn't be healthy, could it?

"Military, right?" Kirk asked.

"Yeah," Ed nodded his expression wary.

"Me and Spock had a problem with Starfleet –our type of military – when we decided to get married the Vulcan way. I mean by the damn shit storm that caused you'd think we were blowing planets up." Kirk explained to the braided blonde teenager.

"How did you guys get over that?" Ed asked with his interest piqued. "No one besides my brother knows about us since Mustang wants to be the absolute top guy in the military."

"Got to a point Starfleet couldn't afford to lose us really," Kirk answered easily. "It takes almost eight years to train an officer and because of a rebel time traveler Starfleet numbers have been down. Not even the recruitments from the past seven years have fixed our ranks yet."

"So, hard ball?" Duo nodded knowingly.

"Basically, yeah." Kirk shrugged. "Maybe when your guy reaches the top, he can change the rules."

Ed grunted and Dr. Anders took that as a sign to keep moving the introduction on.

Without further prompting, Duo Maxwell began his introductions. "I'm Duo Maxwell. I may run and hide, but I never tell a lie. I'm a Preventer. My lover," Dr. Anders couldn't help her pleased smile at hearing the endearment. "And I work the same job, but for obvious reasons, we're never really partnered together if the boss can avoid. Heero is quiet and a total hellcat in bed." Duo winked. "Call me Duo."

"You're trouble aren't you, Duo?" Dr. Anders asked with a quiet laugh.

"Only most of the time." He grinned.

"And how about you?" Dr. Anders prompted the green eyed boy next to Duo.

"I'm Harry Potter and I've just graduated the Auror Corps. It's like the police academy for wizards." Harry shook his head. "Anyways, Draco Malfoy is my boyfriend and he's…he's Draco."

"I see." Dr. Anders nodded. "And you?"

"I'm Yugi Mutuo and I'll be working towards my archeology degree in the fall." The polite Japanese boy with colorful hair said. Dr. Anders had a feeling he was the only truly innocent one out of the group. "And my yami, um, Atemu is my," and the young man actually blushed "Lover."

"Right," Dr. Anders nodded smiling and touching Yugi's knee in reassurance.

"How about you?" Dr. Anders asked the boy between herself and Kirk.

"Hn." The dark boy grunted.

"That means 'I'm not going to bother because I didn't want to be here.'" Duo translated helpfully.

"Speak silentese, do you?"

"Had to learn, it's all Heero would do for like a month after we first met."

"Ah." Dr. Anders said as if she understood.

"Don't worry!" Duo said mischievously. "I'll introduce him!

"Hello, my name is broody boy and the only reason I'm here is because my significant other has sunshine shoved up his ass." Duo turned to Sasuke who raised an impressed eyebrow. "Am I right?"

"My name is Sasuke Uchiha." Sasuke shrugged.

"Ah, close then." Kirk snickered.

"Indeed." Dr. Anders smiled. "Now that we've gotten the introductions over with, why don't we talk about why we're here?"

Strangely, Sasuke's glared seemed to be asking the same question.

"We're here to get in touch with other men (and hopefully women next group) who also experience similar lives and preferences." Dr. Anders said. "We're to work as a support group to help each other bear the stereotype of a submissive and help each other with the problems our relationships can be composed of."

"Like what?" Harry asked, his green eyes thoughtful.

"Abusive partners, partners who demand too much, problems in the bedroom…" Dr. Anders shrugged. "For example, Ed, I've noticed out of everyone here, you and your partner have the largest age gap. Almost fourteen years, isn't it?"

"What of it?" Ed grumbled.

"Well, isn't that kind of young?" Dr. Anders asked. "And according to your brother, your relationship with him started when you were sixteen."

"That's the age of majority where I'm from." Ed said firmly. No one mentioned he currently didn't look older than nineteen.

"I'm not judging you." Dr. Anders corrected quickly. "It's just the age gap must've cause some problems before."

"Age doesn't mean a thing when it comes to the completion of your soul and happiness." Yugi answered in all seriousness. The Japanese boy's purple eyes soft and full of love. "Sometimes the age difference is a good thing! It means they can help guide you through the world while you teach them about the new world. Age doesn't matter." Yugi nodded his head to stress his point.

"I don't think he's talking just about you anymore," Duo faked whispered to Ed.

"Yeah, I can see that." Ed said rather dryly.

"You're involved with someone older too?" Dr. Anders asked quickly. How strange, the background check had proved Atemu Yami to be nineteen…

"Sort of." Yugi blushed slightly.

"Don't worry Yugi, we understand dimensions differ." Dr. Anders tried to placate the young man. "Just explain the situation as best as you can."

"He's the other half my soul and used to be the pharaoh of ancient Egypt that I freed from a puzzle." Yugi briefly explained.

Dr. Anders blinked rapidly. "Um, maybe we should explain what makes each dimension so different? That might help speed up the process."

"Nah, that'd take half the fun out of it." Kirk denied. "Like, I'm trying to wrap my mind around that little guy right there," he pointed at Yugi "Is dating someone thousands of years older than him, but you were giving that guy," he pointed at Ed "Crap for dating a guy fourteen years older."

"Hn."

"Translate?" Harry asked Duo dryly.

"He said something along the line of 'I can relate.'" Duo grinned. "Am I the only one sleeping without someone in my age group?"

"But that's not possible!" Dr. Anders protested, dragging her vanilla folder files out. "According to these, Atemu is nineteen; Naruto Uzumaki is actually a few months younger than Sasuke…the only one recorded of being older is Roy Mustang!"

"I'm sleeping with someone in my age bracket." Kirk informed Duo lofty.

"Me too," Harry chimed. "We met at Hogwarts."

"Huh, so half of us have things for old men." Duo nodded sagely before smirking lecherously. "I like it."

Kirk burst into laughter and Harry blushed lightly. "Kid, me and you are gonna have some fucking fun here."

"Likewise." Duo smirked.

"Go to Hell," Ed growled.

"Hn."

"It's not that bad is it?" Yugi asked meekly.

This exchange slipped past Dr. Jael Anders while she searched her files frantically. She should have turned the position down. As honored as it was to be picked by the council to help these young men defeat stereotypes, they just seemed to be inviting more in!

Didn't they know the older a lover was, especially to a younger, teenage one, the more likely they were to be abused?

The rest of the conversation continued to go unheard by Dr. Anders while her mind conjured horrible images of those poor young boys being abused by their disgustingly older partners. The horror!

"Well, not bad." Kirk shrugged. "It's just society tends to frown on such an age difference since the chances of the older partner taking advantage of the younger one are higher because the relationship becomes unbalanced."

"But Atemu has never made me feel that way." Yugi protested. "He takes care of me and treats me like an equal!"

"The problem rests in the fact that the younger partner can create a dependency on older as well, leading back to the abuse." Harry explained. "We just had a seminar on it. A lot of young witches and wizards get married to people in their fifties and the like because of our extended life span. We were trained to look for the signs to help in domestic violence issues involving the walking dead and newly graduated students."

"So, what you're saying is I can't grow too dependent on Atemu?" Yugi asked and he titled his head to the side like he was trying to figure out a perplexing problem.

"Basically." Kirk shrugged.

"Oh." Yugi was silent a moment and then began speaking again. "Then how would I go about solving Atemu's problem?"

"What problem?" Ed grudgingly reentered the conversation.

"He'd be useless if he didn't think I needed him." Yugi explained.

"You know, I didn't even think about how that would factor into your guys relationship." Kirk whistled.

"You're right Yug," the braided American said giving the other a boy a nickname already. "Heero would be helpless if I didn't need him in some way. He'd get all angsty and try leaving me because I didn't need him and then I would have to try convincing him that I still needed and wanted him." Duo frowned in thought. "It's just easier to let him think I depend on him, because maybe I do depend on him in some way…which means I have a dependency on the fact he was a dependency on me."

Duo frowned heavily, arguing circles around with himself.

"You are one devious little shit." Kirk told Yugi impressed. "You would know, uh, Atemu, right?" Yugi nodded. "The best so you're the best qualified to judge your relationship. But that doesn't solve the other two." Kirk looked once at Sasuke and then another at Ed. "You manipulate Atemu for your relationship's best interest. Age doesn't really seem to matter to you guys. You guys though…"

And for the second time that evening, Sasuke deigned to speak.

"The age difference is only a technicality." Sasuke said. "Naruto," and the way his voice caressed the name betrayed the icy exterior. "Is the vessel for a hundred something fox demon for a lack of a better explanation."

"Ah." Harry nodded. "Explains a bit."

Sasuke's words brought Duo from his chasing thoughts.

"A demon?" the conniving expression graced Duo's face once more. "Does that have any impact on the sex?"

At Harry's stunned expression, Duo cackled, his head thrown back. (In another support group, Heero frowned and shivered.) Ed sniggered into a gloved fist. Kirk snorted and Yugi looked everywhere around the room but at the other men.

"What do you think?" Sasuke retorted.

Duo blinked and burst into laughter again.

"Really?" Yugi asked with some embarrassed curiosity. "How?"

Grunting in defeat, Sasuke stood up from his chair. He lifted his blue shirt slightly and pulled his shorts down slightly exposing his hip and the dark bruises there that could be seen. "He gets increased strength and super healing with some aggression issues. I don't have the increased strength or super healing." Sasuke snorted.

"But the aggression issues?" Harry smirked knowingly.

Sasuke shrugged. "We all have our kinks."

"Yeah, having a genetically enhanced lover is tough." Duo said empathically. "They forget we lowly humans bruise easily," a crazed shadow past over his face as he continued "And don't heal from a sprained wrist overnight right before a complicated mission!"

"Experience?" Sasuke asked.

"Yeah." Duo nodded losing his steam and rant. "I've found icing it as soon as possible reduces how long they last and having Heero massage them gently helps."

"To increase the blood flow in the bruise?" Yugi asked.

"And to make him feel bad." Duo smirked. "He's usually more gentle afterwards. Then rinse and repeat."

"Hn." Sasuke grunted with a thoughtful look.

"So, you two aren't being abused by control freaks or pedophiles." Kirk pointed to Yugi and Sasuke. "So, that just leaves you to explain." He jabbed a finger in Ed's direction.

"Me and the bastard have issues." The blonde admitted. "But not the issues everyone seems to think we're having. If anything, I'm the one yelling and abusive." He shrugged. "It's just how our relationship developed. We were never really friends so much as people who liked getting on each other's nerves and with stabbing and setting each other on fire."

Five out of seven people in the room smiled in remembrance of their relationships and their tender beginnings.

"_Good times." _

"What?" Yugi asked confused.

"Draco and I hated each other for the majority of school. Bane of my bloody existence." Harry recalled fondly. "I almost killed him once with a spell. It was a bonding moment."

"Huh. Dangerous aren't you?" Ed muttered with an amused smirk.

"At least he didn't maroon you on a block of ice." Kirk said dryly. "Or try and choke the life out of you."

"Heero pulled a gun on me once." Duo volunteered. "But he was probably just mad because I shot him."

"You shot him?" Yugi asked incredulously.

"Twice." Duo said helpfully.

"Hn."

"Sasu says he and fishcake used to try killing each other a lot too." Duo translated.

"Am I the only who is in a normal relationship?" Yugi asked in disbelief.

"Actually, if you think about it, if Atemu is your soul mate because he's a part of your soul that was never transferred to your current body, then that's the highest form of narcissism. You're in love with yourself." Ed analyzed.

The purple eyed man sat in the metal chair, looking stumped and vaguely worried.

"But then again on some level are human beings are narcissistic." Ed added when he saw Yugi disturbed expression. "So, you really do have the perfect love."

"Except for that part it's basically masturbation." Duo added with a benevolent smile.

Harry choked back a laugh. "I'm suddenly reminded of Draco."

"Hey, Doc." The young captain poked the obsessing woman. "We've figured out that age doesn't apply to us. What's next?"

"What?" Dr. Anders asked dazed. She shook herself visibly to gain control of her mental facilities and began speaking in more coherent sentences. "We could discuss the violence in each relationship? I have lists of witnesses observing certain events and it worries me that each of you, with some exceptions, resort to violence to solve your problems that honest communication could also solve."

"Where would the fun be in that?" Duo asked rhetorically but earned answers from the other braided teen and quiet "Hn." of agreement from Sasuke.

"I think yelling counts as "honest communication."" Ed scowled.

Dr. Anders stared blankly at him before deciding to simply ignore the blonde man.

Harry actually perked up in his chair while the youngest boy out of all of them relaxed. Even Kirk seemed at ease in the chair.

"You two don't think you need help improving your communication skills?" Dr. Anders questioned.

"Atemu is in my head." Yugi explained. "We have a mind link. Comes with being soul mates."

"Spock is a touch telepathy and we engage in mind melds often." Kirk's perverted grin belied as to when those mind melds were performed. "So, I've got enough of that communication stuff."

"Lucky you." Harry said sourly. "All Draco can do is complain about everything. I don't think he is ever happy. Can make a guy feel inadequate, you know?" He shrugged. "At least you guys have a constant reminders and firsthand knowledge of how much your partner loves you."

Everyone turned to look at the two men with intimate knowledge of how their lovers' minds worked due to frequent trips in each others' minds. Unsurprisingly, everyone looked quite envious. Including Dr. Anders.

"'Ro and I would have the perfect relationship if we had some mind link too." Duo began woefully. "We've always had problems," and everyone instantly knew he was using the collective we, as in 'we are dirt poor even though I'm not the one who gambled away both our paychecks' we "Expressing our emotions to each other." Everyone kindly ignored the thought that was possibly due to this "'Ro" they had such problems. "We've gotten better, but there's always room for improvement. Those links make me so jealous."

The room was suitably silent for a moment.

"They aren't so great." Yugi burst. "If you want to surprise them or keep something secret, well, tough."

"Same here. The only reason Spock and I got together is because of his mind melding and my feelings for him coming to the surface when he was in my head." Kirk agreed. "He knows me too well sometimes. It's very exposing. And annoying"

"That only makes me feel mildly better." Harry snorted. "Draco is one of those people who expects you to read his mind. That'd be a useful tool."

"I would go crazy if the bastard could read my mind." Ed said flatly. "The amount of blackmail he'd use on me as a result…I couldn't take it. I'd have to kill him and leave my dimension with a new name."

"I agree." Sasuke nodded. "Naruto is in my head enough. I'd never get a moment alone if he actually had claim to a part of it."

"True." Duo murmured.

Dr. Anders looked at the six males thoughtfully.

"Have any of you discussed goals with you partners?"

"What do you mean?" Harry asked with a frown.

"Like your plans for the future." Dr. Anders clarified. "There will come a time you will grow old, or even a time one of you gets injured beyond repair. You all work or will work in incredible dangerous professions." Feeling Yugi's confused gaze she continued. "Archeology has many hidden risks. Disease, bobby traps, cave-ins…" she shrugged. "Have any of you ever discussed what you'd do if you were unable to continue working in your profession? Or about getting married or children?"

The silence that fell upon the room was heavy. Each man stuck in his own thoughts. Dr. Anders glanced at the clock across the room. They had roughly a half hour before the other discussion group was over.

"I can see this is a topic many of you are uncomfortable discussing." Dr. Anders commented softly. "Why?"

The silence lasted for all of two minutes before Duo broke it with a sad sigh.

"We just got out of a war. We didn't know before that if we'd live or not. It was always about the moment. Not too much about the future." He looked uneasy. The first time Dr. Anders could recall something akin to fear on his face. "And everything's perfect, so why should I ruin it by making demands for the future I'm not even sure we can handle? We're not normal in the slightest. Why pretend we are?"

"We just came out of a war too." Harry told the group. "It was difficult to think of anything but the war existing and now that it does, we never really talk about it." He shrugged and looked very uncomfortable. "Draco's tried to bring it up but every time he does an argument usually crops up and it makes him forget about it."

"The past still haunts us too much to properly discuss a future." Sasuke said with his eyes far away.

The other gave quiet agreements excluding Kirk who frowned intently at his knee.

"If you let your pasts dictate the future, then you won't have a future." Dr. Anders said solemnly. "Try talking to your parents tonight, or tomorrow about the future. I'm sure they'll surprise you with their desire to have solid plans. A lot of relationships fail because the two people involved aren't the same goal orientated." She looked at all their faces. "I would hate to see that happen to any of you, especially when you all seem so in love."

Ed's head jerked up in disbelief.

"Even you Ed." The woman chuckled. He looked vaguely disturbed so Dr. Anders kept the rest of her observations to herself.

"Do you have any tips to make these conversations easier?" Harry asked.

"Try the classic, 'I want to talk to you about something' and go from there." Dr. Anders told the group, some listening intently and other trying not to be as obvious about listening to her advice. "Don't get mad if at all possible. You're trying to figure out what your partner thinks, just because they don't agree doesn't mean you shouldn't listen. You can compromise."

"And what should we do to keep," Ed stumbled over his words for a moment as if having problems getting his thoughts in order. "Violence and yelling from this conversation?"

"If your partner seems unwilling to discuss the future with you like a rational adult, then give him some space. If he seems unlikely to ever discuss the future with you maybe seeing a therapist would be best, or even breaking up." Dr. Anders advised. "Just because you love them doesn't mean you should wait forever for an answer."

"And if they're waiting for you?" Sasuke asked.

"Figure yourself out, your thoughts and wants. If you have it in you to participate in a healthy relationship, then bring it up. But if you can't" she looked Sasuke straight in the eye. "He would be better off with you letting him go, so he could be involved with someone willing to do what you can't."

Silence seized the room again. Dr. Anders gazed each of the members in her support group. They were all unique gentlemen with unbelievable backgrounds, and yet, here they were united by the one thing they had in common, loving someone.

"This is depressing." Kirk said flatly.

"I haven't felt like this since Ginny broke up with me." Harry said glumly. "We broke up because her mum kept pushing for us to get engaged and have kids. What if the same thing happens?"

"I doubt it will." Ed disregarded. "That happened because a third party was meddling. If you choose to talk to your boyfriend it's because it's your decision. Before you were both being pressured into something you two obviously didn't want."

"I hope you're right." Harry sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

"I'm always right." Ed said smirking.

"I'm sure _Roy_ would say otherwise." Duo teased back.

Ed scowled at Duo. Yugi smiled in relief at the crushing tension slowly being lifted.

A knock at the door broke their gentle teasing and Dr. Anders looked at the clock again. Huh. It was already ten. How time flew by.

"Looks like group is broken up for the day." Dr Anders laughed. "You should all exchange numbers or means of contact if at all possible. The members here are meant to help you with your relationships. Don't be afraid to ask each other for help."

The group of men began talking to each, exchanging ways to communicate while Dr. Anders went to answer the door where a large blonde with a cheery disposition waited patiently.

He grinned widely at her, but stayed at the doorway watching Sasuke with blue eyes. She hid her smile at his lost in love expression and instead turned her attention to the others in the hall. Heero was waiting patiently in the hall, standing with a man closing resembling Yugi. Across from those two, a snooty blonde leaned against the wall by himself. Just leaving the room their group had been housed, Roy Mustang and a man with lightly tinted green skin and pointy ears were talking with thoughtful expressions.

And last but not least was her counterpart.

She smiled at the redhead woman lovingly and happily, letting her know Jael's group had gone smoothly. When the redhead smiled back and nodded, Jael turned her attention back to her group.

"I hope to see most of you for our next meeting in three months." She told them. "And don't be shy about asking for help when you need it."

"Thanks Doc." Duo Maxwell said and then hugged her. She laughed and just as quickly as he had hugged her, he let her go.

He quickly walked towards Heero, but she wasn't able to see them reunite because the others followed Duo's example with a shy hug, nod or tiny bow.

When they had all left with their partners, Dr. Jael Anders cleaned up the room with Dr. Fae Bolton in an easy silence. Only after she turned off the lights and locked the door did they say anything to each other.

"That wasn't so hard." Jael said with a smile. "Except for some of the paperwork going missing. Everyone cooperated and I think took something from this experience."

"I'm so glad for you." Fae Bolton teased back. "I felt extremely fortunate when someone would sneeze. They didn't really start talking until Mustang started telling them stories about his younger lover, and then suddenly everyone had a story to share! They are quite a stimulating group."

Together, they left the military base, thinking about the men they had shared the better part of two hours with. Dr. Jael Anders just knew her life had got a whole lot more interesting, especially if they group size did increase. But she hoped she had helped them in some way, even if it was just allowing each young man to value his partner more.

Like how she did.

* * *

Wow. I wrote this mainly for fun. Let me know what you think! I tried editing it as many times as possible so let me know if there is a mistake I can fix. I had it in my head they were all at a bar...but maybe later if I ever add more I can fit that scene in. And, what's your favorite songs for each pairing, if you have one? :) I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it!


	2. Doms Support

Warnings: Hinted mpreg or adoption, it's up to you. I think that's it... And mush. Lots of mush with angst. And Yaoi/Slash!  
Pairings: 1x2; Spirk; Drarry (who gave them this name anyways?); Puzzleshipping; RoyEd and NaruSasu.

**Doms Support Group**

Dr. Fae Bolton smiled as her phone sent the text message to her lover and turned her attention to preparing her own room. Unlike Jael, Fae didn't have as many things to prepare. She had the basics for food (she doubted anyone would wander over to the snack table) and bottled water. This was a support group to discuss relationships, not a party. A previous peek into her significant other's plans influenced her to have the same circle of chairs.

Circles worked. It allowed her to see everyone and allowed no one to feel left out. She grimaced slightly. And with how often many dominants ended up being the silent types, she really needed anyone at all to participate. _Why must they be so silent?_ She questioned with an edge of begging. And then another thought occurred to her. _Maybe they're just quiet compared to their lovers?_ Dr. Bolton instantly shot that idea down. She had to be realistic here.

They probably didn't talk much because their lovers wouldn't shut up.

Dr. Bolton sniffed at that idea with some mild amusement. Knowing Jael, she would be in so much trouble if the other woman could read her mind. The sniff brought a distinct smell of smoke into her nostrils and she coughed. It was strangely acidic and was beginning to make her eyes water.

"Hehe, sorry about that." A rumble chuckled in embarrassment. "I didn't mean to do that. Sasuke was always better at transportation jutsus."

Dr. Bolton wiped the tears from her eyes and waited for the smoke to clear before looking for the source of the smoke. The source was a tall blonde with a cheery smile and three scars on both sides of his face. He was handsome and if Dr. Bolton had been so inclined, she would have been attracted to him. As it was, she wasn't really into blondes and had no desire to be thought of as a home wrecker. Especially when it concerned two ninja. It would have been quite possible for her to lose her life.

"That's alright," Dr. Bolton nodded politely. "Have a seat anywhere and please help yourself to refreshments."

Stupid acidic smoke. Naruto Uzumaki was fortunate she was a forgiving person, or else. She firmly pushed away all the creative ideas she had, such as forcing the blonde to interrupt Jael's meeting. Jael would throw a fit and prove just how "delicate" submissives were.

"Cool!" The blonde exclaimed.

The hope he wiggled into her heart encouraged her to push the creative methods of torture away. His attitude was cheering and she could only hope she received more than one person with a similar attitude. Maybe this meeting wouldn't be all bad?

Ten minutes until 8:00. She could only pray.

Out of the corner of her eye, Dr. Bolton saw the door close but didn't hear it close. A Japanese teenager of medium height walked towards her and Dr. Bolton hid her smile at his disarrayed brown hair. She could only imagine what the boy had done previously to get it in such a state. He walked directly for her.

"I am Heero Yuy," The boy greeted and shook her hand.

His grip was calloused and professional. The name reminded her of the files she left in her office. A teenage terrorist. She firmly reminded herself that he worked on the side for good and it was highly unlikely he would kill her, or anyone else in the room. Which made her think, who would win in a fight? A ninja or a terrorist?

She would have to mail in the suggestion to Spike's _Deadliest Warrior_.

"Dr. Fae Bolton," she returned the introduction. "Please, help yourself to something to eat and sit down."

Unsurprisingly, Yuy went to go sit down without even looking at the snack table. She hid the wry smile on her lips. Yes, Yuy was more of what she had been expecting this evening.

Seven minutes until 8:00.

The next man to walk through the single door was a deceivingly delicate platinum blonde. She knew his looks were deceiving from the get go because of the smug expression decorating his face. He may have the body of a submissive, but that attitude screamed 'I call the shots no matter what' and made her wonder how many sexual favors he traded with his lover to get what he wanted.

She watched with some amusement as the platinum blonde looked around the room critically and sighed heavily through his nose. A personality synopsis flashed in her mind and she put a face to the personality: Draco Malfoy. If she remembered right, he was the heir to more money than she was likely ever to see in one lifetime.

Dr. Bolton prepared herself for snootiness and hoped for the best while he found a seat and sat down. Her evening was not looking like fun so far.

Five minutes until 8:00.

A chuckling man with black hair in an Oxford shirt and black slacks entered the room and Dr. Bolton believed her prayers were answered for a moment. Here was another man with a warm personality! His dark eyes surveyed the entire room before landing on her. He smiled charmingly and Dr. Bolton felt a blush rise to her cheeks. Whoever his lover was must be extremely fortunate…

"Good evening, I'm Roy Mustang," Mustang greeted and stuck his hand out for her to shake. "It's a pleasure to meet you Dr. Bolton. I've heard a lot of good things about you."

He smiled again and let her hand go. It took some time for her to realize he had gone to sit down and another minute to realize what he said. Had he researched her? Wow. She felt strangely flattered by the idea of the man running a search on her. She wondered what he found while she glanced at the clock.

Two minutes until 8:00.

She returned her attention to the just closing door and observed the next participant. He had colorful hair and a preference for leather. The way he carried himself betrayed more arrogance than Malfoy and she wondered how it happened. From his profile, she had learned he was a university student, not a little king in training. Atemu Yami certainly seemed like a puzzle…

She watched as he sat down next to Yuy. His hands busy shuffling a bunch of black and gold cards.

"Help yourselves to any refreshments." She urged the group and patiently waited for the last person.

Once again, they ignored her suggestions.

8:00 exactly.

A tall man with a tint of green so slight, Dr. Bolton wondered if she was just imagining it, to his skin and pointy years dressed in black pants and a brown sweater with blocks of black. She watched him as he moved with feline grace towards her. How did he do that? Her passing thought that the man wasn't human was proven correction when he introduced himself.

"I am Spock." He nodded with his hands clasped behind his back.

Recalling the cultural warning in his file, Dr. Bolton didn't even bother sticking her hand out to shake. Spock from the destroyed planet of Vulcan. Would it be inappropriate to offer her sympathies? Reading his somewhat curious face, she decided it would be.

"I'm Dr. Fae Bolton and I'll be your hostess this evening." She smiled slightly and he nodded his head again.

Her hopes and prayers for a talkative group were somewhat answered it seemed. She speculated the odds of Mustang and Uzumaki holding an entire conversation for two hours. Unlikely, but she had a feeling it could be done.

After watching Spock settle down, Dr. Bolton went to lock the door against any interruptions. When she turned to face them again, she noted the seating arrangements: Uzumaki, Malfoy, an empty seat, Yuy, Yami, Mustang and Spock. She could live with those arrangements.

Hopefully.

"Good evening," she greeted the group as a whole. "As you know, this is the first meeting of Support for Doms. No, I did not name the group. One of my superiors did. He thought he was being funny." Uzumaki grinned at her joke. "We're here to discuss relationship problems and advice for others to help make your relationships run smoother since most of you are in positions in your dimensions that if you were distracted, the human race or the entire dimension would be wiped out." She smirked at their expressions. They must not have known how much research she did. "We'll start with introductions and move on from there. "You first, Yuy. I want to know your name, what you do for a living, your partner's name and your thoughts on your relationship."

The Japanese boy with the messy tresses was silent for a moment, presumably getting his thoughts in order. Dr. Bolton took the time to admire him and notice the way he held himself. Very self controlled. She made a mental note.

"Heero Yuy, I am a Preventer, working to insure the peace and stability of Earth and the colonies. My partner's name is Duo Maxwell and our relationship is stable." The boy said and Dr. Bolton got the impression he was military.

He said things without really saying anything. Perhaps it was a left over habit from his terrorist days?

"Alright, Yuy, we'll go more in depth in a few minutes, but now it's his turn." She jerked a thumb in Yami's direction.

"My name is Atemu Yami," Dr. Bolton doubted that was his real name from the way he hesitated over the name. "I am a student at Domino University and my partner's name," and the way he said partner made not only Dr. Bolton's eyebrow raise, but everyone else's. The infliction of his voice betrayed that when he said partner, he meant it in more ways than one. Dr. Bolton could only guess at what other ventures the two were involved in for the word to carry so many meanings. "Is Yugi Moto. I believe our relationship is well."

Great. Another one that wanted to keep the details of his private life just that – private.

She'd have to teach these boys better ways of classifying their relationships...

"You're next, snake charmer." Dr. Bolton glanced at Mustang who only smirked.

"My name is Roy Mustang. I am a Colonel in the military and I am due a promotion soon." The confident smirk made Dr. Bolton retract her previous statement about his lover being lucky. That much confidence in one man must be hellish to live with. "My partner is Edward Elric who absolutely loves it when you mention his height." The playful look in the black eyes made everyone in the room think otherwise. "And our relationship is like most – filled with the normal problems."

Well, at least he had been more forthcoming than the other two, but he still didn't give a real answer. The urge to throttle each man for answers grew.

"Next!" Dr. Bolton urged.

"I am Spock, and I am the First Officer abroad the Enterprise." Spock began and again Dr. Bolton was given the impression of another military man. "My partner, as you say, is Jim Kirk and our relationship is secure."

Resisting the urge to sigh, Dr. Bolton waved the next in line for introductions on. Hands around throat and tighten, answers _will _be choked out of you.

"My name is Naruto Uzumaki and I am ninja from the Leaf village!" He smiled a thousand watt smile. "My partner's name is Sasuke Uchiha and our relationship is pretty good all things considered."

Dr. Bolton made a mental note to get to pry into what "all things considered" meant. There was a can of worms she definitely wanted to open if only to get some excitement going.

"And last, you blondie." Dr. Bolton informed the platinum blonde right next to her.

He sniffed slightly and then began to speak: "My name is Draco Malfoy. I am a Potions journeyman. Potter is my "partner" and our relationship is just fine."

Dr. Bolton actually sighed. Oh boy. The amount of problems in that introduction were too numerous to count. She labeled him as another she'd have to badger information out of.

"Since you all introduced yourselves in a 'satisfactory' manner, I will introduce myself as well." She smiled at them. "I am Dr. Fae Bolton and I am obviously a psychologist. I used to do criminal profiling but left the business due to my lover's urgings. Her name is Dr. Jael Anders and she is currently holding the Inter-Dimensional Subs Support and our relationship has its ups and downs but over all we're happier together than we would be apart which is why we're together." She looked around and noted the somewhat interested expressions. "Now, are there any topics anyone wishes to broach before I take control of the discussion?"

Reading their expressions (and in some cases the lack of expressions), Dr. Bolton sighed and grouchily began with the classic question: "Does anyone know why they're here?"

"Because I was forced to?"

"To improve our relationships?"

"Because I don't speak bastard?"

"I thought it'd be funny?"

"To lessen the amount of misunderstandings?"

"Duo thought it was a good idea."

The urge to sigh was replaced with the urge to roll her eyes. Hopeless, every single one of them.

"Right," she began with some sarcasm. "Spock and Yami had the best answers, which tells me a lot about your relationships. We're going to start there.

"First, how many of you showed up today because your partner encouraged you?"

Dr. Bolton looked around the room as most of the men grunted affirmative. The only one not to grunt was the Vulcan directly across from her. Alright, that was at least a step somewhere.

"Spock, why did you choose to come to this group?" Dr. Bolton asked.

"I had hopes it would help my _T'hy'la_ and I handle the stress of our relationship along with the stress of running a starship." Spock answered. His voice was extremely soothing and the strange word he had used had given Dr. Bolton the impression it was a word with connotations more meaningful than the universe. "We've also been discussing expanding our family, but before we do so, I wanted to insure our relationship will not fail as a result."

"You're in the right place then," Dr. Bolton smiled at the man. "We'll discuss ways to always keep your relationship thriving despite the many other stresses in your life." She turned her attention back to the group. "Can anyone supply any ideas on what would help Spock's relationship with Kirk remain intact if they decided to expand their family?

Silence took the room hostage as everyone seriously considered the question. Uzumaki sneezed and smiled sheepishly and then frowned seriously again. Dr. Bolton was almost positive she could feel the strain of them all thinking. Their thoughts made the air wavy slightly, like a heat wave did. She was about to interrupt the silence when someone finally spoke up.

"When it comes it children, I've learned that they take over your entire life." Mustang said thoughtfully. She wondered who he was recalling in his memories. "So, any relationship should be prepared to handle feelings of jealousy from both parties because of the child."

"Excellent point, Mustang." Dr. Bolton beamed. "Do you have any suggestions for Spock on how to keep your partner from becoming jealous?"

An unholy light entered Mustang's eyes.

"When Edward thinks I'm ignoring him I usually insult him to let him know I still love him. He perks right back up." Mustang smirked. "He secretly loves the attention."

"Really? Usually when I try that method I get hexed." Malfoy interjected. "And Potter has wicked accuracy."

"It takes a certain skill," Mustang said. "We usually end up fighting so he doesn't remember why he was depressed. I wouldn't recommend it for just fun, unless you feel like causing trouble."

"I think I'm gonna try that on Sasuke next time he's being moody." Uzumaki mused.

"Let me know if it works for you," Mustang said. "But I don't think it will for Spock here. He doesn't seem like the type to use such underhanded methods."

Dr. Bolton smiled pleased that conversation was taking off without further meddling from her. Although, maybe she should step in so Mustang didn't encourage them to do something stupid? It may work for one relationship, but she doubted it could work for five other unique relationships.

"You could try talking." Yami advised. "It takes patience, but usually Yugi tells me in the end what is bothering him and what I can do to fix it."

"I wish Sasuke would tell me when I ask," Uzumaki grumbled.

"Why wouldn't he?" Yuy asked.

The impression Dr. Bolton got from Yuy's relationship with Maxwell in that moment was they had open lines of communication. But reading the face smooth of expression told her Yuy's problem with communication probably had to do with his inability to express himself in those lines of communication.

"Sasuke doesn't talk much." Uzumaki shrugged his large shoulders. "It has to do with the fact his brother broke him with his stupid shit of killing their clan and making Sasuke go crazy. Sometimes I think Sasuke _is_ crazy but that's okay."

"It's okay he's crazy?" Malfoy asked startled.

Privately, Dr. Bolton agreed with the Malfoy heir, but she figured that everyone was crazy in some way. Love truly was blind.

"Well, yeah." Uzumaki shrugged. "I love him anyways. I mean sure, I really don't like when he tries to kill me, but he's stopped doing that. He's trying. I can see that much. Why should I ruin all his progress just because I think he isn't going fast enough?"

"'There's nothing to fix.'" Yuy quoted softly.

Dr. Bolton glanced at the young man and smiled. They sounded like words Yuy had taken to heart, and Dr. Bolton wondered if Duo Maxwell had spoken them. Uzumaki looked surprised at the interruption but smiled and nodded enthusiastically in agreement.

"Exactly! He isn't broken. He's perfect just the way he is." Uzumaki frowned slightly. "I just wish it was easier for him to talk to me."

"I've found that talking about a "safe" topic first can help ease the conversation first," Mustang relented. "For example, when I talk books with Ed, we both know what's coming next, so we both have time to prepare our thoughts. He decides what to tell me and how much. Sometimes he doesn't tell me anything, but he knows I'm willing to listen if does want to tell me."

"Wouldn't simply saying, 'I'm here for you' do the same thing?" Malfoy asked sardonically.

"You're obviously dating someone more in touch with his emotions." Uzumaki noted with a wistful smile. "Some people need the pretense as security. Someone like Sasuke." Uzumaki turned a bright smile to Mustang. "Thanks, man."

Mustang waved a hand and with a start, Dr. Bolton noticed his white gloves for the first time. How did she miss them the first time?

"So, you all recommend simply talking?" Spock interrupted before the conversation could go off on another tangent.

"It may sound simple, but it's really not." Uzumaki made a face.

"He's right," Mustang nodded sharply. "Each person has different defenses, like Edward will start hearing things, taking things out of context so they fit his delusions." He stared into the distance with a hint of a smirk.

"What do you do?" Spock questioned Yami. "You appear to have optimal communication with your partner."

"I ask him what is bothering him and patiently wait for him to tell me." Yami said simply and then a dark look over came his eyes. "Unless he lies to him. Then I go looking for what upsets him and take care of it." The ominous words left no doubt in anyone's minds what Yami meant when he said 'take care of it.'

Was everyone at this meeting capable of killing someone at the drop of a hat? Dr. Bolton wondered with a slight frown. A ninja, terrorist, two military men and now a vengeful killer. The only one not known for some sort of violence seemed to be the wizard. And she had read a warning in his file about him being from a line of dark wizards. What kind of dimensions did these men come from?

"And this works?" Spock pressed.

"Most of the time," Yami agreed.

"I see. I will take all your suggestions under advisement." Spock nodded, his brow already furrowed in thought.

"That was wonderful." Dr. Bolton informed the group happily. "That is exactly wait a support group is meant to do. Now, there's another topic I'd like to broach. Malfoy, why did your partner have to force you to come?"

Malfoy scowled and opened his mouth twice before finally supplying an answer: "His friends suggested we come. That's the only reason we came."

Sometimes Dr. Bolton hated being right about relationships.

"Just because they told him to?" Uzumaki asked with some incredulity.

"He holds their opinion in higher esteem than mine." Malfoy began with some bitterness. "Every time I try talking to him about _our_ future, he has to go prattle on to his little friends for permission. It's like he doesn't even want us to have a future."

"What happens when you try telling him how you feel?"

"'Draco, they're my friends. You need to grow up and get over yourself.'" Malfoy repeated in a high pitch voice. He continued in his normal tone. "He's a right bastard about it."

"Have you ever mentioned your dissatisfaction with him valuing his friends' opinions more than your own?" Spock asked with some curiosity.

"I used to," Malfoy admitted, his voice low. "He just brushes me off or we argue, so I've stopped."

"You gave up." Yuy said bluntly.

"Well, yeah," Malfoy agreed, deflating. "I got tired of always trying and not getting anything back."

"You could try one last time?" Yami ventured. He appeared unused to the idea anyone would hold someone else's opinion so far above his own in his own relationship.

Dr. Bolton silently agreed with him. If Fae everyone went to someone else to plan their future, she'd go crazy and hide the bodies of everyone involved in the ocean.

"Or offer him an ultimatum," Mustang shrugged, only a glimmer of pity in his eyes. "Tell this Potter guy to start listening to you or you'll leave him."

"But—" Malfoy started.

"Listening isn't the same as acting," Yami soothed. "At the very least you need to know he is willing to listen to you. He doesn't have to obey your suggestions for your relationship, just hear them out."

"Compromise makes up most of a relationship." Yuy added.

"Tell me about it," Uzumaki snorted. "I had to give up my apartment for Sasuke and my privacy. We have a squad of ANBU on us at all times! But I had to draw the line at my ramen. I don't care if it's not healthy. It's _good_."

"And what did he get in return?" Mustang asked with a knowing smirk.

Uzumaki coughed and mumbled into his hand. Malfoy, being seated right next to the golden blonde, started snickering while Spock's eyebrows threatened to hide in his hairline. Dr. Bolton suddenly wished she was sitting next to the blonde ninja.

"Speaking of compromises," Dr. Bolton interrupted before Mustang could go in for the kill. She had seen the way his eyes gleamed. "What are some of the compromises you've all made to maintain a healthy relationship?"

"No more Shadow Games," Yami said instantly. "He doesn't like them very much. I don't know why he would feel guilty for my actions…" He trailed off.

Dr. Bolton only had a moment to wonder what a Shadow Game was before the next man answered her query.

"My comfort at night." Spock said after a moment's thought. "Vulcan's require higher temperatures to be comfortable while humans needed cooler temperatures. It often makes our conjoined quarters uncomfortable."

"Muggle baiting and insulting Muggleborns." Malfoy added forlornly.

What the hell was a Muggle and why did she suddenly feel very insulted? For good measure, Dr. Bolton glared slightly at the platinum blonde.

"A stocked fridge," Mustang said dryly.

Yuy thought for a long moment before adding his two cents. "My laptop."

"Your laptop?" Dr. Bolton echoed.

"Duo said the amount of time I spent on my laptop was making him jealousy." Yuy shrugged. "I can only use to it at work now."

"I see," Dr. Bolton said faintly while Spock explained what a laptop was to the rest of the group. "What did you all get in return for giving up these things?"

"He moved in," Mustang said.

"Jim spends more time in our quarters with me." Spock said.

"We go out in public now." Malfoy said. Was that a trace of happiness she heard? Dr. Bolton began to work on a solution for the wizard. "Muggle London is somewhat interesting, if you take the right venue."

"He began to trust me," Yami said smiling softly at his memories.

"I got my hair brushing privileges back." Yuy answered.

Dr. Bolton was beginning to believe Yuy only said the things he did to stun her. She couldn't imagine the stiff man in front of her doing something like brushing hair. It just didn't fit the man sitting next to her.

"Am I the only one who got sex out of the deal?" Uzumaki demanded.

"Duo and I don't bargain with sex anymore." Yuy shook his head. His eyes began to move shiftily. "After a month we both decided it wasn't worth it."

"How can someone sacrifice sex?" Mustang asked rhetorically. "Besides, Ed is nineteen. He is a slave to his hormones."

"Yugi would never be so fiendish," Yami denied. "He is a kind soul."

"Jim has the sex drive of a sixteen year old," Spock answered dryly like that answered everything. Which it did.

"Potter used to try and bargain with sex," Malfoy smiled sharply. "After the Weasley/Granger fiasco he knows better."

"Then how do I get Sasuke to stop?" Uzumaki pouted. "It's an unfair advantage."

"When he cuts you off next, prove to him you can go longer without sex than he can." Yuy solved.

"And that works?" Uzumaki asked with some awe.

"Worked for me," Yuy nodded his head, his hair falling over his eyes. "It's what forced Duo to call a truce."

"You have to watch for him trying to tempt you," Malfoy began in all seriousness. "When they realize you aren't joking, they suddenly begin wearing tight clothing and see through shirts and looking more desirable than usual. This is when you know you are close to winning."

Dr. Bolton was starting to get a sinking suspicion about her own relationship. Fae wouldn't do something so underhand, would she? Shaking her head to herself, Dr. Bolton returned to conversation going on around her.

"Right, ignore a super hot Sasuke because it means I'm winning." Uzumaki leaned forward in his chair like an eager pupil.

"Before you get too excited Uzumaki, maybe you should show everyone a picture of Sasuke." Dr. Bolton said, hiding her smirk. She had seen a glimpse of Sasuke Uchiha from her lover's files and they boy was _gorgeous_. Drop dead gorgeous.

That must've been a ninja talent of his…

"I'm sure I got one around here somewhere…" Uzumaki mumbled while he dug through his pockets.

"Why would his looks matter?" Spock asked her in all seriousness.

"You'll see," Dr. Bolton said smugly.

"Ah! Here it is!" Uzumaki pulled out a frog coin purse and pulled out a folded picture.

The five men got up for their chairs so they could see the photo better and a moment of silence went by. Dr. Bolton hid her surprise as the more reserved men got up to satisfy their curiosity like Yuy and Yami.

"You're so screwed."

"You never had a chance."

"Just bow down to his whims now."

"You're in a shit load of trouble."

"See what I mean by his looks now, Spock?" Dr. Bolton asked with a pleasant smile.

"I do," Spock nodded. "It is…fascinating."

"What?" Uzumaki looked at his photo of Sasuke and at the other men who all looked highly amused. "Why am I screwed?"

"That boy knows he's attractive." Yuy began.

"And from what we do know about him," Mustang continued.

"You'll never saw no." Malfoy finished. "Especially if he paraded himself around demanding for it like Potter tried doing."

"Hey! My willpower is strong! I can handle it!" Uzumaki protested.

"Naruto," Yami sighed, rubbing his temples. "Think about it."

Uzumaki sat in silence before a glazed look entered his eyes. He flushed and looked at the other men who were still crowded around him in embarrassment.

"I see." He coughed.

"Exactly," Yuy smirked.

"Moving on gentlemen," Dr. Bolton said firmly. They all went to back to their chairs. "Spock has mentioned children, starting a family with his partner, does anyone else have plans for the future with their significant other?"

"Yugi and I have discussed living in Egypt for a year after we graduate," Yami offered. "Kabia Corp has offered to fund a dig to learn more about the creation of Duel Monsters and the ancient history surrounding them."

"That sounds like a nice plan." Dr. Bolton said. She was further encouraged by the prompt answer. She had feared a long pause of nothingness again.

"You plan to work together?" Yuy asked curiously.

"Yes," Yami nodded. "Our skills complement each other and it is something we are both passionate about."

"And you both function well together?" Yuy pressed.

"Of course," Yami said. "We give each other time apart as well so we do not crowd each other."

"I see," Yuy said thoughtfully.

"What are you thinking, Yuy?" Dr. Bolton prompted. She wanted inside that boy's head and he had to share in order for her to be there.

"Duo and I used to work together as partners," Yuy began, the thoughtful look never leaving his eyes. "We worked extremely well together, but after Lady Une was informed of our relationship, we were reassigned and ever since then, I have not been comfortable with him being an active agent. It," he struggled for a moment. "Worries me. I just wonder if it is possible for both of us to exist together if we took other professions."

"You are considering quitting your line of work?" Spock asked with some curiosity.

"I've thought about it," Yuy said with some hesitation. "What we do is dangerous and I believe we could find something else to do, although, it would be his decision in the end, I just think we both stuck to what we knew rather than what we are passionate about."

"You should talk to your partner about it," Yami agreed. "Nothing else is better when you are both working together on something you love."

"Does anyone else have plans?" Dr. Bolton intervened before the two men could monopolize the conversation. She was pleased, however, they were talking to each other.

"I have a question actually?" Uzumaki fumbled. "Do you think a break – a vacation – could benefit a relationship?"

"Vacations generally help," Dr. Bolton began slowly. "Because they take the couple away from outside distractions. It allows them time to focus purely on each other and their relationship."

"So, it could be a good idea?" Uzumaki pressed.

"Of course," Dr. Bolton agreed. "But you both have to be in receiving mood or else the vacation could back fire and end up in only arguments, arguments that you generally avoid due to everyday distractions."

"Right," Uzumaki nodded vigorously. "Don't crowd him and don't expect miracles."

"Or else you'll get cabin fever," Mustang smirked. "I can only imagine what Ed would do if I took him away for a week to do nothing but relax."

"Speaking of yourself and your partner," Dr. Bolton said. "What do you two have planned for your futures? After you retire from the military?"

Mustang was silent for a long moment, and then answered. "I imagine Ed would like study more, be one of the renowned Alchemy scholars after the war. I am not sure I can see myself retiring."

"Do you think that will cause problems in your relationship?" Spock asked with his eyes bright.

"I imagine it will be complicated at first, but if a system is developed." Mustang shrugged. "Anything is possible. I don't want to push him to do something he doesn't want, and I know he feels the same."

"What happens if you have anything in common?" Malfoy asked in seriousness. "Po—Harry and I don't work in the same field, we don't like each other's friends. I think the only things we have in common is our hate for the ministry and ability to relate to each other. That's it."

"You two have problems." Uzumaki said bluntly.

Dr. Bolton silently applauded the man for being so honest.

"Mr. Malfoy, I believe you would mostly benefit from a long discussion with this 'Harry.'" Spock informed the younger man.

"Find something you both have in common," Yuy said as if it was obvious, which in retrospect, it was.

"Take time to find something you can do together." Yami said bluntly. "Anything to save your relationship."

"They're right," Dr. Bolton informed him. "Relationships take hard work. Love is a verb, not a noun. It is something you have to constantly work at to keep alive. It's not going to be easy. Ever. But the benefits always out way the hard work it takes." She glanced at the clock. "Our time is almost up, which brings me to the last thing I want to discuss today. A lot of you described your relationships without really describing them earlier, so now I want you to think of one word that describes your relationships – all the good and the bad." She looked over the group and had to banish the laughter that tried to bubble up. Who would have guessed a bunch of fearless men would be afraid of a bunch of adjectives?

"I'll go first." She smiled. "Affectionate."

She pointed at Malfoy, a sign for him to speak. "I don't know." Malfoy began with some irritation. "Maybe…windy."

"That's good." Dr. Bolton smiled. "Your turn, Uzumaki."

"Feline." Naruto said after a moment with a wide grin. Dr. Bolton hid a smile at Spock's expression. Maybe the Vulcan had a thing for cats?

"Spock, your turn."

"Inevitable." He said lowly.

The way his eyes shined made Dr. Bolton smile. She had read in a sub note in his profile that he had encountered another version of himself from another timeline. The only logical step she could make was that version of Spock had also been in love with captain.

"Mustang." Dr. Bolton ordered.

"I believe I would have to say, fiery." Mustang finally settled on.

Dr. Bolton raised an eyebrow at the proclaimed Flame Alchemist and wondered if that was the reason he used a fire based adjective. Shamelessly, he smirked back at her. Laughing softly, she urged the next man in the circle to speak: Yami.

"Light." Yami answered without hesitation.

"And you?" she directed at Yuy.

"Whole." He said simply.

"Now, I want you all to remember the memories and the love you felt while you were searching for a word to describe your relationships and apply to describing your relationships," Dr. Bolton encouraged. "Which leads me to your homework assignments. Malfoy, I want you to make a date night with Potter once a week. Uzumaki, I won't you to tell Sasuke exactly what you told us about what you feel for him. Spock, have that talk with Kirk. Yuy, talk with Maxwell about your future plans, find a new interest. Mustang, you need to figure that out too. Yami? Make sure the others do their homework." She smirked at the circle of men. "And remember you can always call each other if you need to, even if it is just for drinks at a bar. Stress and mistrust kills relationships. The best any of you can do is talk, communicate. Communications results in trust and stronger bonds and ties." She gave them all a more honest smile. "Now, get out of here. I hope to see you all in three months."

She watched as Mustang got up and then wrote his P.O. box address on a piece of paper while the more technologically advanced societies exchanged phone numbers and email addresses. She hoped they could keep in touch.

Sighing, Dr. Bolton waited until they all left to clean up the room. It amused her slightly that Spock had deemed Mustang a prime example of perfect relationship conduct while Yuy interrogated Yami on what sort of interests were common to have. It was no surprise to her to see when Uzumaki bounced out of the room to stand outside of Jael's room.

Love was a strange complex thing, but she knew they all had it.

She put the uneaten snacks in the trash with soft eyes, impatient to be reunited with her own lover.

* * *

Notes: The reason this refers to their last names instead of their firsts is because I believe Bolton would have kept a more standoffish way of referring to them mentally. This oneshot is moving into a tentative ten chapter arena. Didn't mean for it to be this way, but… I keep getting ideas. Hopefully, the humor will balance out any drama there is. :)


	3. The Beginning of Homework

**Timeline: **Assume the coming chapters all happen over the span of a week. It's what I'm doing. XD And for the universes, just assume the timeline unless otherwise stated is TWT.

**Week One**

**1x2 **

Shrugging off his jacket, Duo threw the garment on the back of their couch. He turned around and smiled wildly at Heero.

"How was your day, Hee-chan?" Duo asked.

Heero had been mysteriously silent the past three days and Duo's curiosity was begging to know what plagued the other man. Duo blamed it on his inner cat. That feline always got him into the strangest trouble…

"Actually, I want to talk to you." Heero said abruptly. "Right now, if permissible."

Duo raised his eyebrow and watched Heero closer. His eyes were nervous, but his body language confident. That was peculiar in itself – to have two different signals. Duo couldn't recall one moment in his life where Heero had been nervous. The closest he could recall was the anxious expression he wore when Relena proclaimed him her boyfriend for two weeks.

(Duo also had never seen Heero so relieved until the day Relena gently broke it off with the classic, "it's me, not you" speech. Not even after he kissed Duo for the first time and saw Duo's wide grin.)

"Alright," Duo agreed cautiously. What did that crazy woman from the support group do to his Heero?

**NaruSasu**

"Sasukeee!" Naruto shouted gleefully. "I have a surpriseee!"

"What is it?" Sasuke asked called calmly from the bedroom.

To say one Naruto Uzumaki was surprised when he didn't get Chidori or senbon or anything lethal sent at his head would be an understatement.

Stupefied, Naruto could only stare at Sasuke. This was new. There was an unwritten law somewhere that stated if Naruto was annoying, Sasuke had the right to punish him in some way. Sasuke normally would never allow screeching through the house, or make calm inquires to afore mentioned screeching. Sasuke was more likely to bitch and glare until Naruto gave in and told him. In which Sasuke would bitch and glare some more.

Naruto wasn't sure how to treat new. "You feel okay?"

**DH**

"We need to—" Harry began before Draco quickly overruled him.

"Would you like to go out tonight?"

Harry blinked at his boyfriend. He wasn't exactly sure what to do here. Did he continue to try and have a talk with Draco that he had been putting off and probably put him in a bad mood, or did he agree to Draco's date? Perplexed, Harry dumbly nodded.

"Good." Draco said in his self satisfied tone. "Be ready by four tomorrow."

What on in Merlin's name could Draco be planning at four in the afternoon? Curious, Harry gave his blonde a smile and began to grin when he was rewarded by a shy smile.

He loved Draco's smiles, as rare as they were.

**Royed**

"Ed," Roy began firmly. "We need to talk about books."

The older man watched his lover nod slowly; his golden eyes narrow in thought. "I suppose we do."

Roy was instantly reminded of why nerds were hot. The way Ed's eyes focused, the way his face moved into a slightly completive expression turned Roy on. But he had to be strong. For the sake of their _future_.

"Great." Roy nodded. "What kind of books are we going to discuss? Family planning? Ancient alchemy? Great war strategies through the ages? Sex manuals for the advanced?"

Ed began to choke. Roy smirked at having gotten the upper hand. The teenager truly was a marvel to see with his face turning red like that. Absent mindedly, Roy wondered if there was any more film in his camera. This discussion was going to be a lot more interesting than he formerly believed and he wanted to document it.

And no, the hot and bothered feeling did not leave. Roy speculated his odds of getting sex that day with a judging eye on Ed's red face.

Looked like fifty-fifty.

**Puzzleshipping**

"What's on your mind, meryi?" Atemu asked his younger lover with some concern.

Yugi started and smiled sheepishly at the concerned ex-pharaoh. He hadn't meant to stare at Atemu without blinking for so long… Perhaps now would be time for that discussion with Atemu? It wasn't like he could say he wasn't thinking of anything. Atemu had already noticed something was wrong.

"Yugi?" Atemu prompted again.

His courage failed him. "Nothing!"

_Great, a chicken has more courage than you do, _he berated himself with a slight pout on his lips. He was so distracted with chastising himself, he didn't even notice Atemu's red eyes darken.

**Spirk**

"Spock—"

"Jim—"

Spock observed his beloved. Jim's cheeks were slightly flushed from their previous activities and he couldn't have looked more desirable than he had the first time Spock had noticed the overly cocky human.

"Yes, Jim?" Spock pushed gently.

"Wanna stay with my mom for the holidays?"

Spock blinked. That had not been what he had been expecting. Tilting his head to one side, Spock answered. "That is acceptable."

"Oh, good. Because she invited us and I've been promising for years, but you know, being on a five year mission detracts from Christmas visits. So, now we have plans. For Christmas."

"Indeed." Spock acknowledged.

Jim was acting odd today. The urge to delve into his lover's mind nearly consumed him. He needed to find out what ailed his t'hy'la. Christmas was over nine months away. If that wasn't a sign of a preoccupied mind, all of Spock's previous observations about human behavior were incorrect.

**1x2**

"Did you hear that Heero Yuy and Duo Maxwell resigned?" Coworker #1 asked excitedly.

"Yeah! I heard it was because Maxwell got impregnated by some aliens on their latest mission and now Yuy is willing to be the thing's other father!" Coworker #2 gossiped back.

"Well, you heard wrong." Coworker #3 frowned heavily. "It was because Yuy was impregnated by a tentacle monster."

"No, wasn't." Coworker #2 snapped back.

"Yes, it was!" Coworker #3 snarled. "I even heard Lady Une accept their resignations!"

"Maybe you're both right?" Coworker #1 intervened.

She had only wanted to gossip for a little bit, not cause an all out fight amongst her peers…

"Barton?" Wufei began with a frown. "Why are those women pulling each other's hair out on the floor like that?"

"I don't think any man can fully explain the female mind." Trowa shrugged.

"IT"S MAXWELL!" Coworker #2 screamed, throwing a fist.

"IT"S YUY!" Coworker #3 shouted, tearing at the other woman's blouse.

"This is just another reason why women belong at home and not in the work place." Wufei huffed.

"Hmmm," Trowa said. "Did you hear about Heero and Duo?"

"Of course," Wufei sniffed while they walked past the two squabbling females on the floor and one wide eyed one. "I helped them convince Lady Une to relieve them of their responsibilities as quickly as possible."

"Really?"

"Yes, I wanted Maxwell out of here as quickly as possible." Wufei smirked. "I heard their going to be opening a business of some sort. Heero didn't really divulge the details."

"I'm happy for them then." Trowa said simply.

"It's a bit suspicious, isn't it?" Wufei continued. "Heero usually has a detailed plan about these things. From what I gleaned from Maxwell's chatter, they're 'winging' it."

"Maybe it was that therapy group they went to?" Trowa suggested. "Quatre wants to check it out. We're going to be going to the ones held by a Dr. Chandler and a Dr. Chase, however."

"Don't come back weird like those two did," Wufei ordered.

**NaruSasu**

"Welcome to the Mismoru Resort! The only place in the country where your identity doesn't matter for a low fee of XXX!" a rather cheery woman greeted. "How may I help you?"

Sakura breathed in deep and counted to ten and then released the breath.

"I would like to book a room for a week with the utmost discretion." Sakura ordered.

"Yes, ma'am!" the woman said. "What kind of room? And for how many?"

"A suite, if you can manage it." Sakura said through her teeth. "And for two only."

"And you said with the utmost discretion?" the woman asked again.

"Yes, no one can know about these two staying there."

"Then I have a few questions for you, are our guests on the run?"

"No," Sakura denied. _Not anymore anyways, _she mentally corrected.

"Are they mentally unbalanced?"

"No," Sakura denied again. _Naruto, you so owe me for this._

"Perfect!" the woman cheered. Sakura winced. "When should we expect our guests?"

"Two days."

"Under what name should I put the reservations under?"

"Uzumaki."

Sakura growled when the line went dead. That was the second place to hang up on her as soon as she mentioned the name Uzumaki. Damn it. This was going to take forever!

Sakura dialed a new number and immediately growled to the other person on the other line, "Sasuke Uchiha needs a fucking suite. If he doesn't have one ready in two days for a week, he's going to kill someone, got it?" After hearing the meek affirmative, Sakura began to smile again. "Good. Pleasure doing business with you.

_Looks like your name striking fear in hearts is a good thing Sasuke_, Sakura thought with some good humor returning. _Too bad Naruto's strikes more fear even though _he's_ a good guy._

**DH**

"We're meeting Ginny for dinner next week," Hermione informed her best friend.

Harry blinked at his best friend, surprised to see her. When did she get there? And for that matter, how the hell did she get into his house? He could have sworn he took her key away when she began abusing her privileges.

"We are?" Harry echoed.

"Yes," Hermione confirmed. "Just the Weasleys and us."

"When, again?" Harry asked.

"On Tuesday." Hermione said with exasperation.

"Sorry," Harry shrugged. "I can't."

"What?" Hermione asked.

_You don't have to sound so shocked_, Harry thought wryly.

"Draco and I have a date." Harry clarified.

"Can't you change it?" Hermione frowned. "You know how important this is."

"Not really," Harry shook his head. "Besides, I'm sure Ginny can do with a break. _I know_ I'm tired of her mum always dropping hints about how we should get back together."

"Is Malfoy pressuring you to say no?" Hermione demanded. "He doesn't control your life, you know."

"No, Draco isn't pressuring me." Harry responded drolly. "I'm doing this because I want to."

"Harry," Hermione started.

"Conversation over, Hermione." Harry said firmly. "I'm going on a date with Draco. I'll have dinner with you guys later. I promise."

"But Harry—"

"I'll talk to you later, Hermione." Harry deflected.

When the young woman finally left, Harry smiled wryly to himself. "God, she's worse than Draco."

**Royed**

Riza Hawkeye tightened her grip on her tea mug. The ceramic was still warm, making her palms sweaty. She was staring into the mug without really seeing anything. Not that the murky brown water inside the mug was something she was really interested in staring down. Her grandmother once told her, all the answers to life would never be found in the bottom of a cup so just drink the god damn tea already you foolish girl.

With some fear, her relatives liked to say Riza inherited the woman's personality.

Which made the decision in front of her all the more perplexing. She was the Elizabeth Hawkeye's granddaughter. She should be able to do this!

"This would completely change my life," she mused out loud. "It would be for a good cause. My best friend would be happy, as would Edward. How can I say no when it would make everyone in my life happy?"

She stroked the side of her mug and recalled all the people in her life. She recalled the antics of her coworkers and friends. The sparkles and deaths. The photos and orders. The love and grief. She had worked with them all for years. If Riza could give them a little bit of light in their lives, shouldn't she try? Could Riza Hawkeye do something as selfless like that?

"The men would be overjoyed," she told the air. "They would love it, as would the brass. They would see Roy as responsible and I'm willing to bet they wouldn't consider Edward dangerous. It'd be good for everyone and I would achieve my dreams of helping Roy achieve his…"

She imagined Al's face if he found out and smiled. The love and adoration he would aim at her and his brother would far out way any discomfort she would have. And if she did this for them, she wouldn't be cast out by them. She would be so deeply ingrained in their family, she would never see a way out. So what was she waiting for? She would belong to a family, a feeling she had been missing since Grandmama died.

"I'll do it if you ask me, Edward." Riza swore to herself. "But only if you do a favor for me as well!"

**Puzzleshipping **

"Yugi," Mai asked with some amusement. "What are you doing?"

She looked over at the young man across the table that had shrunk in his seat. Mai watched the usually gentle teen dart his amethyst eyes rapidly to the side and back and smile sheepishly.

"Sorry, I thought I saw Atemu."

"And why are you hiding from Atemu?" She asked with some amusement.

Usually her involvement with the teenager was limited to tournaments and lunch dates with Joey and the rest of his friends. Yugi's invitation to lunch had been a large surprise to her that drew at her curiosity, demanding her attention and that she accept the invitation, which was why she was sitting outside a café with a raspberry ice tea in front of her while she watched Yugi pursue the menu and hide.

"Ah, I don't want him to know I'm talking to you." Yugi managed to say. She raised an eyebrow. _Interesting_.

"Why's that?"

"I want your opinion on something and Joey trusts you." Yugi said.

Her usually cold heart felt touched that the teen would trust her opinion about something but that didn't explain much. "Why do you want my opinion?"

"You're a woman," Yugi flushed with embarrassment. She smirked slightly.

"So, why not ask one of your other little friends? Like that Anzu girl?" Mai asked.

"She's not, um, well," Yugi stuttered. "She's not like you. She's too, um, how do I put this? She's too close and can't give me an objective opinion."

Mai had never felt so flattered before in her life. "You want _me_ to give you an honest opinion? About what?"

"Atemu," he flushed.

Not only was her curiosity being tickled, but Yugi trusted her to be honest with him in regards to his relationship. How did she get so lucky? The only thing that could make this day better would be if she had someone to call her own as well.

"I want to ask you about…"

**Spirk**

"You want me to what?" Bones asked blankly

"You heard me," Kirk grinned.

"I think I heard you," Bones agreed. "But for the sake of my sanity I better have heard wrong."

"Why?" Kirk frowned. "What's wrong with it?"

"Besides the fact we're on a god damn starship and he's a Vulcan? Not a thing." Bones said. "But we are on a starship and he is a Vulcan. It's not going to work."

"It's going to work." Kirk dismissed. "Besides, doesn't your daughter need to get them off her hands anyways?"

"Not the point, Jim." Bones scowled. "The point is it's not going to work."

"Why don't you allow me to worry about it working, and you just get it for me, deal?" Kirk retorted playfully.

Kirk grinned playfully one last time and left his best friend's office with a cheery grin. Bones growled and slammed his desk with hand, wishing he had a strong drink hidden somewhere. Jim just never made anything easy.

"I swear that damn support group just put funny ideas in his head." Bones grumbled. "Didn't make them normal at all."

* * *

Riza's grandmother is so named because of the character Buffy Summers. I figured she's a kick ass blonde female so... I finally posted this after arguing with myself about posting it as a seperate story, so this chapter is more like a prologue (which is why no real details are given as to what each group is doing) and then we'll get into the actual story. :) Future chapters will be longer, this is just the set up. :)


	4. The Places You Will Go

The Places You Will Go  
(or, _How Heero Yuy Finally Accepted the Crazy in His Life that Took the Form of Duo Maxwell_)

Once upon a time, Heero Yuy had been an innocent. He had been born to normal parents with split nationalities that loved him more than life. They had taken him places (most likely) and surrounded him with fuzzy things (he presumed). Sadly, life is composed of tragedies and Heero Yuy found himself in the care of Odin Lowe with no name (the bastard called him child for years). After the assassin tainted his youth with blood and unceremoniously keeled over, Heero Yuy found himself in a mad scientist's care and killing people along with saving the world. After the war, Heero worked hard to have some semblance of innocence and normalcy.

He should have known he'd give that all up for Duo. He really should have. If had remembered that, maybe the ensuing events wouldn't have come as such a surprise.

…And that would explain why he had the insane notion of making his lover happy by giving his lover the one thing their lives could never allow because they were law abiding citizens and Preventers: something valuable to steal.

The things he did for the love of a thief. Really, he deserved the best boyfriend award for this.

"I spoke to one of the men in my support group," Heero said. "And he said that his dimension incorporates the use of magic. We can do that one first, or we could leave it for last and wait to find a way to compensate for our lack of magic. You're the expert."

Duo beamed. "Let's leave that dimension for last! Some guy from my support group came from a world of ninja! Let's hit them first. I want to see what kind of advantage their ninja skills give them." The darkening violet eyes made Heero squish down his libido.

"Alright," Heero nodded instead. "What item should we target?"

Duo furrowed his brow in thought and realized he had no clue what the ninja dimension had that was worth stealing.

"Looks like we'll have to hack into Headquarters' information about the dimension to see what's valuable," Duo smiled sheepishly.

Heero gave his lover a bland look, secretly pleased the playful spark that had been missing from Duo's eyes was back.

He hadn't even realized how much he loved the look of criminal mischief on Duo's face until the moment Duo lead them out of the house and towards a discreet location to properly research dimensions. Not that it would help much anyways. Half the fun for Duo, Heero knew, was "winging it."

"Heero," Duo breathed and Heero wondered how unique those purple eyes were to Duo. "I wanna steal paper."

Blinking in surprise (didn't thieves normally target jewels and other shinys?), Heero leaned over Duo's computer share with interest. The government program (only accessible to those with proper clearance, or someone who knew how to hack properly) shared a brief summary of how the world worked. Heero mostly skimmed the text, tucking things here and there away for further use; although, the computer certainly explained Duo's sudden interest in paper, or more widely known in the ninja world as forbidden scrolls.

"Can we pretty please spread them across the dimensions? It'll be funny watching them get them back."

Heero considered his options and did something he rarely did. He looked at Duo's puppy dog face – the cute and unbeatable eyes – something he never allowed himself to do previously because of the war.

"Sure," Heero shrugged and then took mental pictures of a smiling Duo.

Damn it, he thought as Duo ran from the room, what did I just get myself into?

As it turned out, (much much much) later as they were running from well trained convicts, Heero could get himself into a lot of trouble with Duo's aid.

The plan had been working perfectly – all systems go. They had researched the village and they had set themselves up in a village in order to blend in with the locals to make the snatch and grab easier. What Heero had not accounted for in all this planning was the one factor he should have: Duo.

Duo (Heero may love the man, but sometimes he wanted to strangle him) within thirty minutes of setting foot in the dimension had made "friends" with one of the most dangerous criminals known to the dimension. Heero said "friends" because Duo had better tastes than a transgender psychopath. (Heero would like to point out there is nothing wrong with being transgendered, but there is something wrong with being a transgendered _psychopath_.)

Dodging a well aim punched to his head, Heero recalled the events that had led to their rapid fleeing:

"Hee-chan," Duo grinned. "I found us an in."

Heero blinked in confusion and peered around his lover to look at the pale man (woman?) behind him. She (he?) had long black hair, maybe dark brown hair and glittery gold eyes outlined with purple eye shadow. The man (woman) reminded Heero of the famed Japanese geishas with thick white face paint and elaborate clothes. Heero returned his blank gaze to Duo and raised an eyebrow, silently asking "What the hell?"

"I think he's transgendered, maybe in between operations." Duo whispered to Heero. "I didn't think it polite to ask." In a louder voice, he continued. "He's offering us shelter in his village if we do some missions for him. I thought it was fair since we didn't really know where we were going."

_We would know exactly where we're going_, Heero began thinking pointedly, _if someone hadn't got bored with the village. Too easy, he says. Unethical to steal from nice people, he says. Damn thieves and their morals_. And then a horrible thought made Heero glare at the man/woman behind Duo.

"He's _mine_."

The transgendered snake looked startled – almost guilty – for half a moment (making Heero wish he could set him on fire with his glare) before smirking. "I would never get in the way of true love." The condescending tone the snake used made Heero's eye twitch.

"Come on, Heero. Everything will be fine." Duo smiled, only after the snake turned his back did Duo reveal the sly smirk he had been suppressing.

Well, if Duo had a plan…

A week later and Heero was berating himself for being so gullible. Duo didn't often have a plan. He had a series of actions he wanted to happen and then he proceeded to make them happen using luck and sometimes his brain if he was feeling particularly bored that evening. Somehow though, Heero doubted that any of the actions that had occurred were within the Duo's "plan." Two weeks later, and Heero was wondering why he had quit his calm and peaceful job as a Preventer. Three weeks and Heero had arranged all his affairs – Quatre got everything.

Why? That's a loaded question. Heero didn't really think Duo would survive if Heero died for two reasons. One, Duo would most likely hermit himself without his lover and become a bitter man driven to either suicide or a revenge mission where he gets killed (basically suicide). Two, Heero killed him first for causing the insanity in his life. Heero believed reason number two was the more likely option. Duo was gifted in that department.

Or was the question why did Heero arrange his affairs at all? Maybe further recollection of the resulting events of befriending a snakey, transgendered psychopath that called himself Oreo (or was it Orochimaru?) was needed.

"Heero!"

Heero quickly burst into the room and let the kunai in his hand fly. He had given up his guns at the dimensional stop point so not to interfere with the dimension's normal state of being and had to make do with the dimension's brand of weaponry. Not as advanced, but insanely sharp. The sharpness almost made up for his missing guns.

"What the hell is that?" Heero barked with his eyes wide.

"Well, you see, I was trying out some of those scrolls and—"

"And tried to what, raise the dead?" Heero armed himself with a longer blade.

The thing he had sent his kunai into could be likened to a cute furry hamster, except, not furry or cute. Actually, the poor thing was missing its fur in spots and was falling apart even as it struggled to get away. But it was a definitely a hamster. Or used to be a hamster at any rate.

"That wasn't what I meant to do," Duo frowned. "I was trying to summon an animal to help in future fights. That's what Oro does with his snakes."

"And instead you got a zombie." Heero poked the thing with his blade. Any parallels to Heero and a kid poking a dead bird with a stick were purely coincidental.

"Damn it, Heero! It's not a zombie!" Duo pouted.

"So what? You just reanimated the dead?"

"Yeah, wait, no."

Heero tucked the blade away and snorted. Duo, it seemed, was Shinigami no matter what dimension they were in. Raising the dead…pft.

And no, it hadn't stopped there.

"Duo?" Heero asked somewhat groggily.

The room was still thickly dark, making Heero feel somewhat relieved that dawn wasn't near. He needed more sleep damn it. All these missions that Oreo had been assigning was wearing him thin – and he was the Perfect Soldier.

Oh, how he wished he could go back to sleep. Unfortunately, his reflexes that had been dulling since the end of the war had come back with a vengeance and hearing Duo creep back into their room pushed him awake, even if it was somewhat groggily.

"Yeah, Hee-chan?" Duo grunted.

"What are you doing?"

The last thing Heero could remember was a bar and singing. Bad singing. He figured he must've stumbled back to bed when Kabuto began singing love song after love song. The boy had no concept of subtly when it concerned his unrequited love with the transgendered snake, Oreo.

On a personal note, many a kunoichi that it was absolutely darling that Heero was trying to set Kabuto and Orochimaru up. They giggled and called him a softie even when he growled it was just so the snakey bastard would keep his fangs away from Duo. For some reason, they didn't believe him.

"Um, remember how we promised to love each other no matter what?" Duo began somewhat tensely.

"Nevermind, I don't want to know."

"Are you sure?" Duo asked from somewhere in the darkness.

"I'm sure." Heero confirmed. "Now get in bed."

The American was quick to comply and once he had settled, Heero closed his eyes and inhaled Duo's scent. The scent was unique to his lover, especially in this dimension. Duo always smelt of gun powder and gasoline, not that Heero minded. He quite liked it. Reminded him of their younger days and happy moments when they weren't pretending to be ninja. His eyes snapped right back open when something unexpected wafted under his nose.

"Duo? Why do you smell like a wet cat?"

"…Because Kabuto is a sick fuck."

"And just to be completely positive, you have cat ears and a tail, right?"

"Erm."

"Right, I'm going to sleep."

Maybe things would look better in the morning.

And that had all been within the first week. Recalling the second week made Heero cringe because by then, his intelligent lover had been able to learn a lot of the tricks the ninja (who preferred to be called nin, something Heero would have to remember to full immerse himself in their culture) were willing to teach him. Like water walking. Despite Heero's many arguments that they shouldn't be able to mold chakra, Duo had done so.

Later, Duo confided into Heero that he had done no such thing. He had simply thought really hard about not getting wet and he was able to walk on water. Heero resisted the urge to throw his braided idiot off a bridge. He had gotten soaked three times and had to sit through a five hour lecture about chakra before nailing the trick.

By week three, Heero was getting the impression the transgendered snake didn't just want Duo, but was also bent on world domination. Or something of the like. It probably had to do with the evil spouts of laughter that Duo had started partaking in, but the final clue had been a random traveler passing by and after sighting the symbol on the piece of scrap metal that Heero kept around his neck (Kabuto, and later Duo, insisted he wore the damn thing) promptly screamed and began begging for his life. As flattering as it had been, Heero had been slightly shocked. Usually he needed a gun.

So, right, they were working for an evil organization. Heero didn't feel as freaked as he should have. He wondered if Duo knew.

The explosives and evil cackles coming out of a nearby cave answered that particular question.

Despairingly, Heero wondered if there a rehab for good guys turned bad guys…

Thankfully, Duo revealed his (illogical) plan to Heero right before it was to be executed (and before Heero contacted the Super Villain Reform group hosted by Clark Kent and Lex Luthor). Bastard. Didn't Duo know by now he hated being surprised like this?

Heero righted the giant scroll on his back. The damn harness holding it up was too loose, but wouldn't tighten any further. He mentally bemoaned the lack of flash drives and other compact forms of containing information. Giant hulking scrolls not only made it harder for them to steal, they were as awkward as hell to carry.

"So, Oro has some freaking cool forbidden scrolls that he really shouldn't have." Duo said unceremoniously.

Surprised at the non sequitur, Heero stared blankly at his beloved lover. And what a fine lover he was too. Duo's braid had gotten longer and he was dressed in black clothing that was more appropriate to the dimension they were in. It was a rather revealing outfit with the skin tight parts and lack of sleeves. He had a distinct lack of a tan due to his naturally fair skin due to the colony he had been born on (although, Heero was willing to beat that hanging out in underground cravens certainly didn't help). Actually, now that Heero thought about it, Duo looked a lot like some of the prettier boys Heero had noticed during their missions.

Maybe being attractive was a required trait to become a ninja?

"That we're going to take?" Heero asked knowingly.

"Well," Duo grinned. "It would be the publically responsible thing to do, wouldn't it? We really can't allow someone mentally unstable have access to that much power."

"True," Heero shoulder the giant scroll with some irritation. He was going to introduce the wonders of technology to this dimension if it killed him. This was ridiculous. "When?"

"You know how I've been making friends with them?" Duo pulled his braid and pulled it forward so he could hold it. Heero eyed the movement curiously. Even after knowing the boy for almost four years and dating him for two, not all of Duo's gestures were readable by him. Heero knew Duo had lockpicks hidden in the braid, but what else could he be hiding? Senbon were skinny enough he could easily push them into his braid, Heero considered. "It seems not everyone likes Oro. A good majority of them are only here because they have nowhere else to go."

"Didn't they choose to be here?" Heero asked.

"Kind of," Duo shook his head, bangs flopping but his braid firmly in place by the pressure of his hand. "A lot of them are missing nin – or used to be – because of a crime they committed against their village. Some of the crimes are actually pretty horrendous, but those are the ones who like Oro. The others, the ones were kicked out by the village elders, not so much by the actual village, were kicked out for breaking some obscure rule or interfering with political agendas."

"How so?"

"This woman, she refused to kill this kid, but the village elders had demanded the leader of her village's ninja to do it. When she refused, they kicked her out and declared her unjust and unfit for duty." Duo's normally playful features were nowhere in sight. "It's fucked up. The elders have a lot of power from what I've managed to gather. You piss one off, only luck can save you from ending up dead or on the run."

"I see." Heero flickered concerned eyes at his lover, the shadows on Duo's face too similar to the ones that had constantly darkened his face whenever L2's oppression was brought up.

"But that's not the point," Duo chased the shadows away. "The point is they hate Oro and his evil ways. They're just doing what they gotta to survive. They could help us. I'm just not sure how yet."

Heero watched the thoughtful frown form on Duo's lips and then turned his attention to their environment. Dark and scary trees surrounded them, reminding Heero of the Black Forest the Brothers Grimm always seemed to weave about. He rather liked them. He wouldn't mind having a nice house surrounded by dark and scary trees to keep everyone away, except for Duo and their friends. Then again, to the other four, trees were hardly scary.

It would be the things Heero encouraged to live in the trees that would scare them off.

"We could use them as a distraction," Heero shouldered the damn scroll again. Stupid scroll and its massive size.

Duo perked up. "A distraction would so work! But it'd have to be pretty good. I heard that Sasuke – this guy from my support group – only managed to distract Oro using some bloodline thingy." Duo stared into the distance for a moment. "For some reason, they weren't very forthcoming what Sasuke had done."

"I'm sure whatever it was, it was well deserved." Heero said dryly. The snake was still giving Duo some pretty weird and _appreciative_ looks. Looks that Heero didn't trust in the slightest. Damn pervert.

"Probably," Duo smirked. "Sasuke didn't really strike me as the homicidal type without some major provocation."

"I understand the sentiment," Heero said under his breath.

Duo either didn't hear him or chose to ignore him and continued thinking aloud. "If we can cause a distraction big enough to stress out Oro, I bet you we could walk out of there. Now, just to decide what kind of distraction…"

Heero watched Duo trail off with some gentle amusement. He loved the braided idiot, even when he had cat ears (included with tail! No neko is complete without one!) and cackled insanely to fit in. He wouldn't change anything about the vibrant young man next to him.

They ceased any further conversation about distractions and true alliances due their proximity to Sound's territory. Seeing the insufferable smirk on Kabuto face when the harness strap slide down his shoulder again, Heero did what any man in his situation would have done.

He threw it at Kabuto hard enough to break his nose. And maybe other parts of his face. Duo had changed Heero enough he figured he could afford to be hopefully optimistic about these sorts of things.

The plan Duo and Heero began to outline together to the point of perfection only took up some of their time for the next three weeks. (They had been in this dimension for nearly two months now and Heero could hardly wait to get back to someplace with _sane _people.) The rest of the time they spent completing missions as mundane as stealing someone's cow for ransom (no one ever did claim the cow) to spying on a group of ninja with a preference for wearing black cloaks with red clouds to building a village and setting it on fire (Oro wanted to inflict terror without actually killing people, seemed he had a bet going with a guy named Madara). Sometimes they mixed it up with moments of passion (what one of the creepy kunoichi called it) and experiments with scrolls and other jutsus.

For example, Duo had finally perfected his summons. They were still zombies ("Reanimated dead, Heero!") but now they didn't fall apart with every step. They could actually go almost a half a mile before losing a body part. The single most disturbing part about Duo's summons had nothing to do with the fact they were dead, but more with the fact Duo could talk to them.

Heero had once entered their bedroom hearing Duo's voice and a squeak, only to find his lover on their bed talking to a rabbit that was falling apart before his eyes. Both zombie-animal and Duo had stopped looking at each other and communicating (dear God, the zombies were capable of thought) and stared at him until he backed out of the room. Heero liked to pretend they weren't talking about him, but when the rabbit started showing up everywhere at the corner of his eye, he had known.

Known that Duo sicced a dead rabbit on him for their argument last night.

He really needed a way to fight back. Like, maybe trying his own summons?

Trying his own summons proved to be a very bad idea.

Mainly for his pride.

He had summoned winged fluffy balls with giant eyes (the amount of eyes were various, depending on the fluff ball) that when puffed up resembled a cotton candy ball that happened to spread glitter to everything it touched. With halos. It had taken days to get Duo to drop his investigations into a glitter fairy. Heero never tried summoning again.

"Heero, I think today is the day for our plan." Duo twitched.

Heero stopped glaring at the scar on his thumb and stared at Duo. Was it just Heero, or did Duo look more unstable than normal?

"Okay," he agreed because really, what else was he supposed to do? If Duo was feeling unstable, then Heero wanted didn't want to bring his wrath down on him. Call him a coward, but he liked living.

"Stupid know it all kunoichi," Duo mumbled on his way to the bathroom.

Were those metal flowers interwoven into Duo's braid? Heero put the handmade maps of the Sound's tunnel system away. This required some hands on investigation.

But first, he had to stop Duo from ripping the flowers out before Heero could um, "make use," of them.

Heero smirked that would have made any wandering kunoichi squeal.

The plan occurred later that night, or more correctly, in the early hours of the morning. The plan had originally called for the stealth of darkness, but Duo and Heero had been suitably distracted until a short while ago and with a shrug, each boy decided dazed confusion from just waking up would work too.

Duo did something fancy with his hands, but Heero was understandably distracted by the steel flowers in Duo's hair not to give the motions any real attention. Only when the braid stopped swaying and the smoke from the summons dissipated did Heero disappear to do his part.

The halls were compact dirt. The seeds Heero and other disloyal Sound nin had planted into the dirt began to grow and stretch with some hand seals of his own. It had taken days for Heero to find the right scroll and another three days to steal it from the Grass nin who thought it was wise to tout it around. He passed a many kunoichi's room with wild, untamable flowers growing, their roots tearing at the very foundations of three key points that would utterly collapse the network of tunnels.

For some reason, the women of Sound were their biggest allies.

At the same time, Duo would be using his army of the living dead to scare the crap out of the wimpier nin and use them to sneak past Oro's defense systems. Oro's dog, Kabuto, belonged to Heero. He hoped he could land a crippling blow – not life threatening because then the man wouldn't be miserable for the rest of his years – as a reminder not to screw with Heero Yuy.

Heero had been taking courses on torture for three weeks now. His teacher said he was a natural.

And if Kabuto was lucky (which from what Heero had seen, he wasn't), then Orochimaru might take care of him if he was handicapped. Or kill him. Heero didn't really care what happened afterwards. He hated both of them anyways.

A terrible squeaking made his left eye twitch. Heero looked down and to the left of his foot was a squeaking dead mouse. One of Duo's messengers. The mouse, happy it finally caught Heero's attention, brushed its head against Heero's sandal. Heero gently nudged the creature back (Duo would be pissed if he kicked the thing).

Having greeted master's big pet, the dead mouse with punctures in his side from a particularly stealthy snake, began to scurry its way back to master. Master wanted his big pet, and so the little mouse would deliver. Everyone liked it when master was happy. Even the big pet.

Heero followed the mouse through a series of interlocking tunnels. Every now and then he'd see a plant eating a human, or a human setting a plant of fire and then getting eaten. It made his little terrorist heart swell in pride. They reached the corridor Orochimaru tended to frequent and where Duo had chosen to hold the confrontation.

It was scorched everywhere and more dead things littered the ground than at a cemetery. Although, if Duo had leveled a cemetery, it certainly would explain things. At this point in his life, Heero wouldn't have been all that surprised. It was Duo.

"Duo?"

"Heero! Come help me!" Duo demanded from the depths of Orochimaru's rooms.

Sighing, Heero did as he was bid; not noticing the mouse's pleased twitching. The smell from the rooms was musky like sweat and something else. Seeing the snake droppings and regurgitated mice, Heero grimaced. How unsanitary, but that probably accounted for the "something else" smell.

He followed the loud noises Duo was making to the sleeping room and blinked slowly at the hole Duo had created in the snake's mattress.

"He was hiding all of his scrolls in his bed. How lame." Duo snickered.

"Why did you need me?" Heero asked. "You seem to have everything covered here."

"I thought you might want to help me destroy these." Duo waved a hand at the scrolls.

"I thought you wanted to hide them in other dimensions?" Heero raised an eyebrow.

"I did," Duo grimaced slightly. "But I don't think anyone should know the secret to immortality, do you? Some of these jutsus are plain nasty." He held up a scroll. "This one untwines the muscles so they fall apart with increased use like licorice whips. I don't think just anyone should have these."

"You want to destroy them," Heero concluded.

"Yeah," Duo put the scroll back on the bed. "I wanna make sure no one can use these again."

"Alright."

Which leads back to why they're running away from a village of convicts.

The explosive tags Duo and Heero riddled the room had been set to go off in five minutes when they had been hit by their conscience, or rather Heero's conscience – it had been kind of skitsy since the wars and Duo had learned to just indulge his lover – so the two had enraged the Sound nin not occupied with man eating plants so they would chase them out of the compound. Heero would like it to be known being nice only got you hit with senbon and kunai.

Ungrateful bastards.

Having spent a majority of their lives running away or towards something, Heero and Duo managed to lose their pursuers with a couple of bombs, dead crows, a cow and a blind man's singing. It was a special set of skills Heero and Duo were proud to have.

"Heero?" Duo panted.

For a moment, they were resting in an abandoned village that had telling scorch marks and blood stains. Heero leant comfortably against a wall while Duo sat cross legged in front of him. In front of Heero because he liked looking at the man with the blood on his cheek, sweat heavy bangs and wild grin.

"Yeah?" Heero grunted. He tied a torn cloth around his arm to stem the bleeding. Last time he ever did anyone a favor.

"I love you."

Heero barely had time to process the words before Duo caught his mouth. The kiss was a paradox. It was soft and full of the love Duo had for him, but the kiss tasted of blood and smoke. Heero brought a hand up to Duo's collar and pulled the other man closer to him, until he could feel the muscle of Duo's chest reach his own. He felt a tingle on his lips from Duo's resulting hum – the only warning he got – before Duo pressed his weight fully on Heero by sitting in his lap.

The presence of blood, sweat and weapons didn't hinder the love they felt for each other. It was a part of who they were. It was a part of their relationship. It was a part of the love they held for each other.

Although, Heero did find the one redeeming thing about this dimension: wire.

* * *

Yes, Heero referred to Orochimaru as Oreo. In Spanish, my girlfriend taught me _oro_ means gold, but I always pronounced it as Oreo. I suck at languages.

A lot of humor, not so much romance. Something I swear to work on, but I hope it was still enjoyable. And if you didn't catch the joke in the last line, one word: bondage. XD

Next 1x2 focused chapter will be form Duo's POV for those of you disappointed with just Heero's POV. The reason this took so long is because I had conflicting feelings on the format. Next chapter will be a NaruSasu one! The pattern is 1x2, NaruSasu, DMHP, Royed, Puzzleshipping and Spirk with intermissions here and there. :)


	5. Gimme Shelter

Gimme Shelter  
(Or, _When_ _Naruto Discovered the Color Red is Supposed to Convey Passion, Love and Sex but Still Ended Up Hating the Color_)

"Have you been here before?" Naruto asked his partner when a maid screamed and dropped the garbage can she had been carrying and ran away.

Sasuke shrugged, an evil glint gleaming in his eyes. "I can't say. Snake got around."

"I'm sure," Naruto said dryly. "And that's why you're barely resisting the urge to activate the Sharingan?"

"They make me feel threatened," Sasuke answered flatly with an edge of humor.

Naruto jerked his head so fast to take a double take of his lover that the bones in his neck cracked like kernel popcorn. Did his Sasuke just make a joke? Holy shit. Sasuke was developing a sense of humor!

"I love you," Naruto blurted. He had never been one to hide his feelings.

"Hn," Sasuke answered, the evil glint in his eyes softening slightly.

Naruto knew this to mean, "I love you too" in retarded Uchiha speak. He had once commented on Sasuke's retarded social abilities to a concerned Iruka, firmly believing it was solely a Sasuke thing to do. Kakashi had overheard and when his manic giggles ceased, he had informed Naruto that it wasn't a Sasuke thing so much as an Uchiha thing in general.

Naruto had proudly informed his boyfriend that not only had he inherited his mom's girly looks, but he had inherited the Uchiha emotional retardness. Sasuke had been confused as to were he was being complimented or not by being told he resembled the dead members of his clan that Naruto escaped the encounter with his life. His Uchiha wore confused incredible well, all very cute like.

Another hotel worker caught sight of Sasuke, screamed and ran away.

"Damn!" Naruto swore. "What did Snake _do_?"

"We spent the night," Sasuke shrugged.

"And?" Naruto demanded.

"That's it," Sasuke said.

"My ass," Naruto muttered. "I'm gonna check us in. Don't move and don't give anyone a heart attack."

What Sasuke failed to mention to his best friend and boyfriend, was team Snake had been pretty wild back then and that the hotel staff most likely remembered Karin and Jugo and Suigetsu – all of whom had set the halls on fire to see how long it took Suigetsu to put them out. And maybe, Suigetsu ordering a wakeup call for Jugo had something to do with it. That maid had been pretty traumatized...

Another person from the hotel staff screamed and ran away.

Then again, it could have been the memory of Karin dressing in Sasuke's clothes and Suigetsu confusing her with Sasuke…Sasuke was only grateful he never turned his back on the missing nin.

Sasuke smiled; Naruto looked back and smiled at seeing the demented look on Sasuke's face that passed for joy. He had known Sasuke would like it here! Or rather, Sakura had known. She deserved a very nice birthday present.

"No, thank you. I'm sure we can find it ourselves." Naruto said in his usual cheerful manner. To Sasuke, he dropped the cheer and used a more normal tone. "Let's go."

Naruto grabbed his bag and waited for Sasuke to grab his bag as well before beginning the search for the hotel room. This sounds like a simple task and to be honest, it really should have been so simple a five year could do it. But like Sasuke had mentioned, time and time again, Naruto had a way of fucking up decidedly simple things.

The hall carpet was a neutral sandy color. It looked quite nice in contrast to their blue sandals. The carpet was the only redeeming part of the hotel hallways. Everywhere Naruto looked, the walls were a different color. Naruto was starting to feel a little hysterical, especially under Sasuke's knowing eyes. The woman at the front desk had said they would be located in the cinnamon red wing in room 4D. Naruto hadn't thought twice about it. In the red wing, room 4D.

And then he saw the different _shades_ of red and numerous 4Ds.

"Sasuke," Naruto began slowly so Sasuke couldn't accuse him of being lost. "How many shadows of red are there?" Sasuke looked at him with no expression. "Right, how many shades of red do you know?"

"Dobe," Sasuke shook his head in cross between fondness and exasperation.

"What?" Naruto began defensively.

"I only see in shades of red." Sasuke said blandly.

"No way!" Naruto looked at his lover in shock. "But—how?"

"Every since I was little I've only been able to see in shades of red and black." Sasuke shrugged. "The medic nin looked into it. They think the jutsu Itachi used on me when I was younger caused it." Naruto continued to stare at his lover and partner in all things with his mouth slightly open. "I thought you knew. Seemed like everybody knew."

"Is that why Sakura wears red?" Naruto asked before he could think. "I mean, it clashes with her hair but she still wears this really bright red."

Sasuke smirked slightly. "Yes."

"Wow." Naruto shook his head. "Just wow." And then he frowned. "How do you know if orange is such an eyesore anyways if you can't see it!"

"Orange is only a few tints removed from red," Sasuke patiently explained. "It's like looking at an extremely bright, neon shade of red. It irritated the shit out of my eyes at the Academy."

"The reason you never liked sitting anywhere near me," Naruto realized.

Sasuke didn't agree or deny Naruto's realization, which was nearly as good Sasuke saying yes. This whole time he had thought the younger Uchiha was just a stuck up brat. Now he felt slightly guilty for always getting in his face.

"Naruto, why were you asking about shades of red?"

And then Naruto was reminded of his current predicament. Shades of red, one shade in particular: cinnamon red.

"Can you tell the difference between shades of red?" Naruto asked somewhat hopefully.

But Sasuke had always been a hope killer, "Yeah, dark red, medium red and light red."

"Damn it," Naruto swore under his breath. "You wouldn't happen to know what cinnamon red looks like, would you?"

Naruto translated Sasuke's resulting look. It asked, "Do I look like a fucking girl?"

"Of course you wouldn't." Naruto sighed despondently. "Damn it."

"I'm going to assume we need to find a cinnamon red," Sasuke said flatly.

"Yeah," Naruto agreed.

They both stared at the red wall in front of them. It looked a lot like a rose, so maybe this was a rose red?

"Do you think it's too late to ask for a guide?"

After shuffling to the front desk in shame, Naruto requested a guide. The amused woman called for another female who giggled at Naruto. The foreboding presence of Sasuke Uchiha, however, stifled anymore giggles and the girl lead them to a hall with deep red walls with specks of black. The whole time she kept a wary eye on Sasuke.

"Here you are sirs," she bowed and hurried away.

Opening the door, Naruto was treated with a room that was thankfully not red. It was plain white that almost reminded Naruto of snow, but the shadows on the wall made the color softer than the blinding white of snow. The carpet looked plush and creamy and he could hardly wait to kick off his sandals and sink his toes in. The bed was a large king, bigger than any bed Naruto had ever used before. He actually wished the bed was smaller. He didn't want to give Sasuke an excuse to sleep away from him. He preferred having the Uchiha as close as possible thank you.

"Nice room," Naruto commented and he tossed his bag on the foot of the bed. It bounced once and then bounced again when Sasuke's bag joined his. Glancing in mild surprise at Sasuke, Naruto was pleased to note only a slight tightness in his shoulders – a tension that never went away even when Sasuke was sleeping –, otherwise, Sasuke was completely relaxed.

Since leaving the cohorts of evil and coming back to Leaf, he had taken to wearing a mixture of his various outfits. He wore a long sleeve blue shirt that was loose at the collar, but hid Orochimaru's mark on his flesh. His forehead protector was tied around his throat, another way to hide Orochimaru's mark. Naruto would gladly do anything to make the mark disappear, even sacrifice his future as Hokage. He understood that Sasuke saw the cursed seal as a representation of his past, a telling mark of his past. And on a deeper level, Naruto instinctively knew Sasuke hated the cursed seal because Sasuke believed it meant Orochimaru _owned_ him. He hated that Orochimaru introduced that idea into Sasuke's head. No one owned Sasuke. No one ever could. Sasuke was Sasuke – unbound by society – and he was free.

He had also taken to wearing white creamy shorts again. Naruto struggled over whether or not the shorts were better than the tight pants he used to wear. On the one hand, Naruto got to see more leg; on the other hand, Naruto didn't get to skin tight clothing cling to Sasuke's legs and thighs. The only thing that possibly didn't change about Sasuke since he was a little kid was his hair. It still stuck up in jagged angles in the back but fell smoothly across his cheeks, down to his chin. Had Sasuke's body always been able to capable of conducting the electrical charges required for Chidori and the other electrical spin offs? Sasuke's hair was what Naruto always believed how a child's would look if he stuck a fork in a light socket.

"What?" Sasuke raised an eyebrow.

Naruto coughed in embarrassment. He hadn't realized he was staring.

"Just," Naruto gestured with his hands towards Sasuke. "You know."

Sasuke opened his mouth, likely about to retort no he didn't know so please enlighten him, when he closed it just as quickly making Naruto doubt the movement ever happened. A considering look passed over Sasuke's face and Naruto couldn't squish the pleased feeling in his gut that Sasuke could understand him.

"Alright."

Something a lot like love pulsed under his skin with that word, with that understanding but it was more than that. It felt like fire had replaced his blood and was racing all over his body – too fast – and he was getting dizzy and high at the mere feeling. Inside, Naruto could hear Kyuubi purring, pleased. _Ours_. And it was like air ignited the fire, making it hungry.

Naruto took a sudden step forward and bent his head down slightly so he could kiss Sasuke. He expected two things to happen once his brain caught up with his body. One, for Sasuke to jump or twist away in surprise. Even after nearly a year of living among friendly nin, Sasuke acted like at any moment a kunai could be buried in his back. Not that those kinds of reflexes were bad to have. They had most likely saved Sasuke's life, especially with the fact he lived with S-class missing nin who tortured the innocent for fun, for the past few years.

Two, Sasuke was skittish when it came to human contact. Perhaps skittish wasn't the best word, but it was the only word Naruto could think of that would fit. Sasuke's family had never been particularly tactile Kakashi had explained the first time Naruto had patted the boy on the back when they were genin. It was considered rude to touch another without permission. Only in the privacy of their homes did the Uchiha express physical reassurance and contact. Physical contact with Sasuke had only decreased as he grew older after his clan's destruction, his aloof behavior holding everyone at bay.

So the sudden returning pressure made Naruto open his eyes in surprise. Sasuke's eyes were closed and his expression soft and yearning. It made Naruto's heart beat a little harder and Kyuubi stirred. The purring increased.

He was ethereal – too beautiful to be human.

Where Sasuke's hands touched, it felt like flames licking him. The sensation was overall strange, but Naruto was suddenly relieved he wore a short sleeve black shirt and had shed his jacket before entering the hotel. The flames – whatever they were – made his head buzz pleasantly, like Kyuubi's purring.

Naruto brought a hand to Sasuke's cheek, brushing the skin there with his thumb. The touch felt different than it normally did. Almost like now the fire was coming from _him_ but not him. But it took too much effort to open his eyes – the buzzing quieting his mind leaving only feelings and sensations – to see for sure if the flames were really there.

A moan reminded Naruto that if the feeling was this intense only on his arms and Sasuke's face then the logical next step would be to remove the barriers between them. When he opened his eyes to do just that, Naruto's breath caught in his throat in surprise.

Flames really were dancing on their skin.

The lack of movement from Naruto made Sasuke open his eyes almost instantly. The flames retreated and all Naruto could do was watch with surprise, arousal and disappointment.

"What was that?" Naruto asked. He wondered if Sasuke could he hear his arousal in his voice. What would he do if he could?

Sasuke didn't blush, but if he had allowed such human reactions, Naruto had a feeling he would be. "It was me – my chakra."

"But how?" Naruto asked feeling something like wonder striking him.

"I don't know. I've always been like that."

"But I've never seen it before and we've done things like this before!" And then occurred to Naruto that perhaps something had changed in their relationship in the wake of their "therapy." "What's different?"

Sasuke sighed and went to the bed. He toed off his sandals and Naruto watched with lingering wonder as Sasuke settled himself neatly in the middle. Underneath dark lashes, Sasuke's eyes beckoned Naruto to join him. Never one to deny Sasuke something, especially with that face – the one that is _soft tender human loving mine ours_ – Naruto settled himself on the bed. Their knees touched and the fire that had replaced his blood still lingering and Kyuubi's purring lessened, like he was more aware of his surroundings.

The fox demon's interest and awareness made Naruto eye his lover (but he's more than that he's a _partner my equal mine ours_) curiously.

"I have become proficient in using lightening. The others, they know lightening is a part of my signature attacks because it is easy for my chakra pathways to access. But that was not always true." Sasuke's eyes looked hidden for a moment and for the first time, Naruto realized he was going to learn something about the youngest Uchiha from Sasuke himself. Not second hand information from others. Not information hard won through trial and error. This was information Sasuke was offering. "My clan they were masters of fire. The clan was almost as famous for their fire jutsus as they were for the Sharingan. It was in their blood, in our blood. There came a point that the fire would reach out, act sentient from our bodies. Like now."

Kyuubi's deep rumblings made Naruto pay attention the fox demon again while Sasuke thought about what to tell him next in silence. _True warm always so warm burning fire underneath den kits piles._ Wait, what are trying to tell me Kyuubi? That the Uchiha family used to sleep in piles like…like baby foxes? They're way too reserved for that. It's not possible. _True pile den family loving sharing._

"Sasuke?" Naruto hesitantly asked. "Are you telling me public touching was banned because _that_ would happen?"

Sasuke's face flickered. He looked ready to close his expressions off, but before he could, Naruto grasped his hand and held it tightly. He tried conveying his love and affection for the emotionally retarded Uchiha and with Sasuke's returning squeeze, Naruto felt his heart ease as Sasuke's face stayed open. "Yes and no. When we are with family, the fire is different. It is the fire of companionship, of not being alone. Familial. A fire that cannot help but jump at the loving touch of family and other strong fire elementals."

"But I'm a wind elemental," Naruto protested gently but kept his grip on Sasuke strong so Sasuke wouldn't believe Naruto was dismissing his affection or something crazy like that.

"You're dual." Sasuke looked at Naruto from the side. "Kyuubi is a fire elemental and you are wind. His fire reaches out to me just as my fire reaches out to him, but your wind inflames us both. You make the fire stronger, undeniable."

"Then why is it just happening now, Sasuke? Why not before? We've been together for awhile now and it never happened before." Naruto struggled to understand.

"The woman from my support group, she brought some things to my attention." Sasuke looked down at their clasped hands. "She made me realize I need to give as much as I take and I have not yet shown or told you how I feel. You always just know." An inflection of wonder entered Sasuke's voice. "You've always just known, but you deserve to know I feel the same. I should have a way to reassure you how I feel like you do for me."

And then realization struck Naruto from nowhere. Sasuke was trying to prove his love for Naruto! The flames…it meant that on some level Sasuke had lowered his walls and was showing his love. How he felt.

The flames that had danced between their skin flared again and around their clasped hands a fire licked and danced. Naruto looked at it with new eyes until he felt the swell of _love happiness everything_ in his heart and it made him look at Sasuke. Sasuke was smiling. It was a barely there smile for the average person but for Sasuke, he might as well be beaming.

Naruto smiled back.

In some way, Naruto had always been holding back. It was done out of love and respect. Kyuubi had always taken an unhealthy interest in Sasuke, from the very beginning. At first it started off as a friendly rivalry stemmed by Naruto's own emotions, but when Kyuubi began to realize he was apart from Naruto, things began to change.

The first time was during the encounter with Haku, when Sasuke almost died. The fox had broken free from his inner prison, brought forth because of Naruto rage and pain at losing his teammate. At the same time, the fox demon's energy raged and readied to strike because this interloper had killed the owner of the red and black eyes that haunted his nightmares.

That's when Kyuubi began to take notice of Sasuke. Naruto never noticed because Sasuke had captured his interest too. How was he supposed to know the demon residing in his body would do the same?

He didn't understand why until after three long years, he saw Sasuke again at the gorge. Kyuubi and Sasuke's first meeting. Naruto couldn't ignore the demon's interest in Sasuke anymore than he could ignore his own obsession to bring Sasuke back where he belonged. _By their side_.

The why had plagued him for months which slowly bled into years. That time was sprinkled with encounters with the Uchiha heir and Kyuubi's interest doubling at each encounter almost as fast Naruto's interest (he could almost call it love but it hurts too much to be love).

A month before Sasuke returned, the demon finally answered Naruto's question of why.

_Because he's ours._

And no more words were said between the vessel and demon, but images were brought to the front of Naruto's mind_. Den love protection pride kits fierce not afraid strong unbroken mine mine mine ours._ Kyuubi saw Sasuke as a mate. A human strong enough to be considered an equal. A human capable of protecting their den. A human that was completely theirs.

Kind of how Naruto saw Sasuke.

It had taken a few months after Sasuke came back for Naruto to figure out he didn't have to win the Uchiha's trust back. He always had it – that and some much more. The entire time, Sasuke had been working on gaining _his_ trust back and when Naruto realized that it was like he knew everything would be alright with the world again because everything was perfect and exactly how it meant to be. Sasuke was devoted (devotion so wrapped in love that Naruto never died even when he should have) to him. Naruto Uzumaki. The dobe.

And Naruto Uzumaki loved Sasuke Uchiha too.

That was the day their relationship changed. Instead of hiding their feelings and protective, concerned actions, Naruto and Sasuke were able to act on them. The people around them couldn't understand the relationship that had been brewing for years, since their Academy days, except for the people extremely close to the both of them: Sakura and Kakashi.

That's why when Iruka urged him and Sasuke to go to the support groups, Naruto sighed and nodded because it meant that everyone else around them could understand their relationship better if they did this. They could learn to understand what Sasuke meant to him. That Sasuke wasn't just an obsession that would pass away with enough time.

That Naruto and Sasuke loved each other.

But that group had changed Sasuke and Naruto approved. The boundaries in their relationship were expanding – relaxing. Sasuke had tried so hard and Naruto decided to meet him halfway.

Tell him about Kyuubi and his interest. About what being a demon vessel meant. How Naruto and Kyuubi could mark Sasuke as theirs forever if he wanted.

"Sasuke…" Naruto observed the other man.

Their vacation seemed to be passing in a blur. It was the fourth night of their vacation and they were getting ready for bed. They had spent the past three days exploring their surrounds, venturing into the villages, discussing their pasts and sparring, getting used to each other after almost five years of absence. It was peaceful and everything hoped it would be. He felt an inordinate amount of relief that Dr. Bolton's predictions about vacations had not applied to their own, although, he could live without the damn walls. He had finally gotten tired of always getting lost he stuck kunai in the walls to guide his way. Sasuke's demented grin and spinning Sharingan dared the hotel employees to say anything or removed the kunai. No one dared.

He was reconnecting with Sasuke all over again and even though his heart and Kyuubi had always known why they loved Sasuke, Naruto was reminded why _he_ loved Sasuke. The pride and strength in Sasuke's almost gliding walk, the teasing smirk when they sparred and the way his black eyes seemed to turn gray when he spoke. It made Naruto want to show Sasuke something in return – not an award – but a way of showing Sasuke he was as dedicated to their relationship as Sasuke was.

"Come here," Naruto quietly demanded.

He sat on the edge of the bed, watching Sasuke intensely. Sasuke looked up from his task of removing senbon from his hair (a habit he claimed the Sound kunoichi had gotten him into) and putting them on the dresser when he heard Naruto's request. Dark eyes looked up and met bright eyes and Sasuke must've judge Naruto's request not unreasonable because he left the dresser and his task to stand before Naruto.

Sitting down, Naruto had to look up at Sasuke. His eyes went from looking at the dark fabric of Sasuke's sleeping clothes to his face that watched him with a strange amount of openness for the normally stoic young man. Naruto tugged the man forward, using his hips and a small part of him was smug that Sasuke _let_ him tug him forward.

"Sasuke," Naruto repeated.

There was no confusion in Sasuke's eyes after that. He seemed to know exactly what Naruto wanted. Naruto was pushed back by hands that could kill him but wouldn't. Sasuke followed him easily by settling his body on top of Naruto's. Each of Sasuke's knees rested next to the sides of his stomach, his weight easy to bear. He looked beautiful with that calm tenderness and lurking intensity. Flames gently licked Naruto's face where Sasuke's fingertips brushed.

It was as easy as that. The rush to feel each other had never been so strong before and it wasn't a battle so much as full submission on both their parts. Sasuke's body telling Naruto with an ease Sasuke had never managed to vocalize, "I am yours. Can you feel this devotion I have for you?" While Naruto's body comforted and spoke of the depth of his love, recalling all the lost time that he had spent searching for him.

It was a fire that coursed through the both of them. _Ours_ repeated firmly on the wind that only seemed to heighten the flames dancing around them. Each touch started a million tiny fires with that wind stirring them and feeding them. It was both of them. Growing stronger and losing the world but never each other.

Hidden from the both of them for that night was an orange swirl that formed on pale skin in the wake of their meeting chakra.

The next morning, no unwelcome light awoke the two. The first morning, Naruto had almost been blinded by the sudden sunshine and had since then, kept the curtains firmly closed. The only thing that Naruto figured could have waken him would be the fire elemental that usually curled at Naruto's back.

Grunting slightly at the effort it took to flip over, Naruto realized Sasuke wasn't in bed anymore. A fact his sleepy brain probably would have realized the moment he snapped his eyes awake if Naruto hadn't been so used to Sasuke's chakra coming and going. The bed was still warm and Naruto had no doubt Sasuke would be returning back to bed if the chilled air was any indicator, perhaps with more clothes than he had left the bed with, but Naruto had a way to take care of clothing if he truly did not want to deal with it. He grinned.

Like he predicted, Sasuke came back to bed wearing loose sleeping pants but surprisingly no shirt.

"Sasuke? What's wrong?" Naruto asked seeing the subtly worried expression gracing Sasuke's face.

"Kyuubi isn't…" Sasuke struggled to find the words. He settled back on the bed. "Please tell me this is Kyuubi's way of marking his territory and not something I should genuinely be concerned about."

"What are you talking about…?" Naruto trailed off.

Where the cursed seal once laid dormant now laid a perfect copy of Kyuubi's seal that was etched on Naruto's stomach.

Tentatively, Naruto touched the mark and followed the spiral with his fingertip. It was blinding orange and it had obliterated the cursed seal like it was never there. Sasuke remained quiet and was growing steadily calmer at the lack of an "Oh shit!" response from his lover.

"I'm sorry about this," Naruto couldn't take his eyes off the replicated seal. "Is it affecting your chakra in any way?"

"No," Sasuke answered. "It's just there. It's almost alive how the cursed seal was, but more…" Sasuke shrugged. "It's different."

_Ours_, a smug voice claimed and Naruto's eye twitched unexpectedly.

_You didn't_, Naruto shot back internally, but the smug feeling never left his mind answered him rather quickly.

"Remember when Lee started sporting that triangle looking thing on his shoulder blades and everyone in Sand started freaking out?" Naruto said licking his lips.

"Yes," Sasuke raised an eyebrow. Why are you mentioning this? The eyebrow asked.

"Well, uh, Gaara told me what it was. What it meant." Naruto coughed embarrassed at what he was going to admit. "Shukaku believed that since that was the seal keeping him contained in Gaara then that meant the seal was like his stamp… Shukaku was proving he owned Lee by giving him that triangle."

"Your fox stamped me?" Sasuke repeated slowly after a few moments.

"Uh, kinda?"

"Why did the cursed seal disappear? It feels like it never existed."

Naruto flushed in embarrassment. "We – Kyuubi and me – knew you didn't like it. Besides, Kyuubi is a possessive bastard. He feels no one else should have a mark on you as long as you're ours."

Sasuke didn't have the fit Naruto imagined a lot of girls in his position would have. He simply sat there calmly; one hand on the new marking watching Naruto was dark eyes. "Alright."

And just like that he crawled back into bed, curling on his side and absorbing Naruto warmth, little flames fluttering where they touched. Stunned for a good five minutes, Naruto looked down at the man he chased for years. Totally and completely _his_ with no reservations. He slid down and threw an arm around Sasuke and closed his eyes.

A wind stirred through the hotel room despite no window being open.

_Ours_.

* * *

It struck me that the NaruSasu was more of a threesome relationship of NaruKyuuSasu. You can't have Naruto without having Kyuubi and I figure that Sasuke would be the type to accept that if he were ever presented this situation. More romantic than 1x2 like I promised. :D Also very AU with my own personal touches on things like the colors and fire, but hey, creative license! And way too much Avatar: The Last Airbender the past few weeks. A lot less cracky than the other chapters, but I feel it remains true to the overall fic because they fic is a cracky romance between insane individuals and major AUness. So ha! :)


	6. Build Me a Home

Build Me a Home  
(Or_, That Time the Weasleys and Hermione Learned Never to Barge In and Draco Gets to Boss Around Beefy Men)_

There was something decidedly weird about Draco. For one, he was dressed in ratty clothing (ratty for him anyways, for the average person he would still have been dressed finely). Two, he was venturing through Muggle London like he had practice. As in, he had done this before. More than once. Draco Malfoy, he who hates all Muggles because they used to burn witches at the stake and other various misguided notions. _The _Draco Malfoy was leading him throughout Muggle London like he did it every day. Harry could feel his brain melt out his ears in shock, but totally not the point.

The point was Draco Malfoy knew how to navigate through Muggle London.

To a real estate office if the words on the frosted glass meant anything. For all he knew, to a wizard Muggle real estate really meant antique shop full of torture devices not used since the 1400s.

Harry gave his boyfriend a dubious look, but in his heart he was glad he had cancelled the day's plans with the Weasley family. Draco had obviously put effort into this and Harry didn't see the former Slytherin put a lot of effort in anything except completing his Potions Mastery. It was…exhilarating. It was like having a part of the old Draco from school back. He was so much more intense. The normally gray eyes almost equal to molten mercury now and all of it was focused on him just like how it used to be in school. He had missed feeling like he was Draco's universe.

"Mr. Malfoy!" a cheery woman with streaked gray hair greeted them. "I've been looking forward to seeing you again. And I see you've taken my suggestion on wearing shabbier clothes." Harry wondered how she could say that with a straight face. Maybe she had seen Draco looking "nice?" "Where we're going we're going to get dirty."

"Never doubt the word of a professional," Draco smiled back politely. "If I may introduce my partner, Harry Potter. Harry, this Melinda Warren, our new real estate agent."

Surprised, Harry shook the woman's hand. The lack of a spark in her eyes at the mention of his name reinforced his belief that this woman was just a Muggle. How had this happen? And what did Draco hope to accomplish by bringing him here? People didn't normally go to real estate offices for dates, did they?

"Pleasure to meet you ma'am," Harry said automatically. Manners had been ingrained in him almost as long as they had been ingrained in Draco. His just weren't as snooty.

"Call me Melinda," Melina smiled. "We're going to be spending quite a while together, I assure you Mr. Potter."

"Then please, call me Harry," Harry returned demurely.

Draco smiled slightly at him and Harry felt himself grow hot under his shirt. When had been the last time Draco looked so pleased? Guilt ate away at him and for the first time, Harry wondered how broken their relationship had been before that support group. He couldn't even recall the last time they had gone out together and fuck, Draco had been able to get used to Muggles and London and Harry hadn't even noticed. Worry and guilt made his stomach flip and he vowed to give the other man more attention. Harry should at least be able to tell when Draco left the apartment...

"Not a problem, Harry." Melinda shuffled a few papers around her desk and picked up five thick manila folders. "Now, Mr. Malfoy—"

"Draco," he interrupted.

"What a delightful name," the woman said with a touch of awe and Harry swore Draco preened. "I wanted to name my son Leo, but my husband named him Wyatt when the nurse put me under some asthenia." She got back on track with a shake of her head. "Anyways, I was thinking we could see five places today and then another five next week? Would that be acceptable?"

"Think you can get the time off?" Draco asked Harry.

Harry got the impression Draco was asking him so much more than he thought he was. Although Draco was a former Slytherin, he was still a Slytherin, veiled meanings and questions dashed with surliness. Harry considered the question with gallons of paranoia and believed he may have figured out what Draco was asking but not asking: Can you get the time off work and from your friends?

The decision wasn't a hard one to make.

"Consider it done," Harry agreed.

"Wonderful," Melinda beamed. Harry realized he had been out of the Muggle world for a long time now, but when had they gotten so…perky? Or was that just Melinda? "Let's go to the car gentlemen and we'll be on our way."

* * *

"What did you think?" Melinda asked, gesturing towards the house and yard. Her sleeve was covered in God only knew what because Harry certainly hadn't wanted to.

"It was nice?" Harry asked bemused. His inner Aunt Petunia was screeching in his ear even now to get burn the damn thing down and start from scratch. He gently tried to hush her so he wouldn't insult Melinda. She seemed too nice to sic an imagined version of his aunt on.

"It was a piece of shit," Draco snorted in amusement. Sadly, Draco didn't have a problem with saying whatever the hell he wanted. One of the many reasons he loved the other man.

Really.

Most of the time.

And he was right, the house was horrible. His inner Aunt Petunia cooed at Draco for voicing the thought she never would say through her mouth or Harry's own. Life was unfair like that. The house, or maybe more appropriately named cottage, looked like a hard wind would blow it over if the pond and stream that had gotten out of control in the backyard didn't try flooding it first. The yard consisted of weeds that ruled what should have been green and lush like evil warlords. That had been the outside and already Harry's inner gardener was crying while Aunt Petunia sneered. When Melinda showed them inside, it was worse. The wood was rotten and it looked like termites had gotten into pieces and then gave up half way through the job. It was dusty and dirty and Harry really, really didn't want to go upstairs but Draco was already five steps up and had sent him that smirk (smirk number three, "I dare you"). So, Harry had trudged up the stairs wishing for a full body protective charm or maybe some bleach and rubber gloves. He kept his hands pointedly away from his wand, finding his hands naturally drawn there to stop the creaking floors from collapsing.

The cottage had two bedrooms upstairs plus a bathroom with missing fixtures. "Porcelain must've been worth some money," Draco commented dryly.

"At least this one has all the door knobs." Melinda said.

Downstairs had another bedroom, a sitting room and a kitchen. Harry couldn't help but notice with some squeamishness the snake skin on the floor. A snake, a growing snake meant there was a source of food nearby which meant rodents. Aunt Petunia promptly suggested he burn the cottage down before bugs could come from the wood work and kill them.

Harry was about to scold his boyfriend and then he saw the smirk on Draco's lip (smirk number five, "I think I'm so God damn clever") and knew he was missing the bigger picture but for the life of him, he couldn't figure it out. Damn Slytherins and their need for subtly.

"Okay, it was pretty run down. Maybe we should move on to the next place?" Harry wiped his feet on the dead grass so he wouldn't track in too much dust and grime into Melinda's car.

Melinda's and Draco's shared glance did not escape the budding Auror but he didn't know why they had done it. Those wankers. Aunt Petunia gave a sigh of relief and then they caught sight of the next house.

The property line was distinctively marked by a large stone wall with moss growing on it. Harry approved and was optimistic about this venture. Maybe this house would be better than the last one. Everything was so green. Absently, Harry thought they must get a lot of rain.

Then he saw the inside of the house and nearly ran into Draco trying to walk right back out.

Water stains were everywhere and Harry could see mold growing in most of the wood. If that wasn't a mushroom growing in the corner of the room, Harry had a feathered boa in his closet at home. The floors were wet and Aunt Petunia was demanding in his head if someone had let an unruly child fill the house with water like it was a pool.

"Come on, Potter," Draco said with false joy and Draco may not be smirking but he sounded like he really, really wanted to and Harry wanted to really, really hit him. "Where's that courage you lions boast about?"

"You're a Leo?" Melinda asked from behind Draco.

"Erm," and how was Harry supposed to answer that?

"Yes, he is." Draco said and pushed Harry further into the house so she could join them in the sitting room.

"This house is bigger than the first one in terms of size." Melinda began. "This house has a basement that I'm afraid is, um, flooded at the moment. Downstairs has a kitchen that with some counters would look very nice, a dining room and library in the back which leads out to the backyard. There are four bedrooms upstairs and an attic. There's holes in the ceiling roof which I'm afraid has damaged the floors of the second level and all the windows should be replaced – the wind broke the glass years ago."

_They're insane,_ Harry thought weakly. They wanted him to walk into a death trap full of rat droppings, mold and weak floorboards. Insane. He was an Auror and not even then did he have to put up with this much grime. And Draco seriously wanted to buy a house like this? It would take weeks of cleaning and repairing, if not months. It was like they were purposely baiting him by showing him all these terrible houses and _oh_. Something clicked in his head and he narrowed his eyes suspiciously at Melinda and Draco.

"We're not going to buy a house are we?" Harry demanded of the now completely innocent looking duo.

"What do you mean Harry?" Draco asked with a touch too much innocence. Malfoys were never innocent. Ever. Rule #32 in the Auror handbook. Look it up.

"We're going to be buying a work in progress." Harry scowled slightly.

"You were right," Melinda turned to Draco with surprise. "I didn't think he'd figure it out until at least the next house."

"He's in law enforcement." Draco grinned mischievously.

"You're a prat." Harry declared and turned away. Inside, his inner Aunt Petunia and his quaking heart calmed because Draco had planned it. Draco didn't seriously want to buy a rundown, falling apart house. He wanted to buy something to rebuild. "Wait for it," Draco said with amusement but to Harry it felt like his voice was far away. He was still missing something…

"We're going to be rebuilding a house?" Harry asked somewhat stupidly.

"And understanding hits." Draco proclaimed smugly.

Melinda giggled.

"But why?" Harry spluttered. "We have the uh," he cast a look at Melinda. "houses from our parents."

"Yes, but those are Potter and Malfoy "houses,"" Draco rolled his eyes. "Not a Harry and Draco house. Think of it as investment into our future."

"Okay," Harry responded still somewhat shell shocked. Who knew Draco could use his evil Slytherin powers for good?

* * *

The next week was spent at the ministry and following up a report about necromancy in a village in Scotland. It ended up being a dud. Only a gang of teenagers using basic levitation spells to make dead animals appear living to scare the locals had been in Scotland. In that same week, Draco managed to explode the experimental potion he had been working on for his Master thesis. The lab he usually worked out of would be closed for the next month to clean it out. Draco refused to comment on what he was working on, but the people at the lab shuddered and moaned that it'd take weeks to bet the magic induced liquid from the walls. Harry heard rumors from his coworkers and whatever Draco had been messing with had caused a bunch of freak accidents to occur within the vicinity. Harry didn't even want to know. Together, they had gone with Melinda to six more houses, an extra being thrown in due to the owner dying, before finally settling on one.

They decided on one of the first houses they saw with the pond in the back and large yard. They had decided on the house because as Draco said, it was an investment into their future together. Harry had timidly offered knowledge about his childhood and how he used to garden. Draco absently said that he had loved exploring the manor's many gardens in his childhood. Together, they decided the yard would be a grace to any children they have in the future. Other prospects about the house both men found pleasing where the large rooms and open spaces. Harry could still recall tight spaces and unequal treatment and didn't want any family member of his to think they were being slighted by getting the "small" room. Draco admitted the basement would work perfectly for his own personal lab if they fortified the walls and foundation in case of an explosion. They began to sign the paperwork with Melinda and her office a week later and Harry was dare he say it? Happier than he had been in probably his whole life.

He finally belonged. Someone wanted him. Life was _fantastic_.

"You made dinner?" Harry asked somewhat doubtfully.

They currently lived in a tiny apartment in the city and the smells coming from the apartment made his mouth water. He was starving from chasing belligerent kids around the damn countryside. He had been fully expecting to make dinner because Draco simply couldn't. The man had been raised with house elves and despite his brilliance with potions; Draco couldn't fix a meal to save his life. He found the spices and flavors in the kitchen too curious and added the weirdest spices to foods. Harry liked cinnamon and all, but he didn't necessarily want to eat it with spaghetti. Potions required some creativity that Draco had in abundance. Harry didn't really want that creativity in his food.

Speaking of Draco, Harry let his look the man up and down. It never ceased to startle Harry he was allowed to look. In their seventh year, Draco had stopped slicking his hair back and letting it stay loose. But he also started keeping it shorter. Harry hadn't known why until Neville, after noticing the appraising glances he'd give Malfoy, explained. Malfoy had given up the traditional long hair pureblood wizards preferred when they became heads of their family lines. It was a statement that ever pureblood wizard who still followed the customs would take as a declaration of Change (yes, capitals necessary, it was THE change) in the Malfoy family. Harry rather thought it had been an improvement. It made him look less of a bastard and a lot less sick.

Draco gave him a look that called Harry nine types of idiot. "I ordered take out from that Indian place you like."

Harry hid his surprise. Draco was venturing out into Muggle London more willingly than ever. He wondered if it had to do with the fact the blonde was bored. Usually he spent all his free time at the potion labs but since they were closed….

"Oh," Harry said and smiled. He chucks off his robes and throws them into the hall on top of a dirty clothes pile. "I'm going to change. I smell like a dead cat."

"I'm not even going to ask." Draco responded rolling his eyes.

"Probably good idea if you wanted to actually be able to eat." Harry grinned.

Rummaging through their closet, he settled on a simple tee shirt and agonized over sweats or jeans. Would this be considered a date if they didn't leave the apartment? Shrugging, he went with the sweats because if he knew Draco, jeans would be harder to take off later.

Dinner was good and Harry's high from the goodness of their relationship increased. Dr. Anders had been right. Communication was good. They're communication though, Harry was beginning to realize, wasn't in their words. It was in their actions and he felt kind of stupid for never having realized it before. He had already been with Draco for almost three years and he was just learning how to read his boyfriend. What did that say about him exactly? All the things Harry used to wonder about with frustration were now crystal clear to him. Draco's mood corresponded with his success at his potions and Harry's own moods and wasn't that startling to realize that Harry was in almost constant state of stress. After cutting back on his workload and time with his friends and spending more time at home, the stress in Harry's shoulders decreased as did Draco's.

It wasn't that Harry didn't love his job or friends. He really did. But you could love something and still get tired of it. His job demanded a high level of physical strength, magical strength and concentration to minute details. It was no wonder that with working forty hour weeks plus being on call he was a little stressed on the verge of being burnt out. Ron and Hermione were his greatest friends and he loved them to pieces. They kept him alive so many times now, but their arguments had not decreased with getting engaged. If anything, they increased and Harry often found himself in between them. He felt like a child in a horrendous custody battle at times. Other times, they made Harry run messages between the two when Ron or Hermione would threaten to leave the other. It made Harry wonder if they were really meant for each other. Maybe they would happier with other people?

Kissing Draco was better than anything else Harry had ever done. There were so many different types of kisses they had between them. Soft and gentle for the days made for love making. Hurried and desperate for the days one of them came too close to dying. Sensual and teasing for the days they were feeling playful. Sad and lingering when one of them had to leave for a few days. There were so many to classify and Harry loved it. He really should have known the blonde was more of a show 'em than tell 'em kind of guy. He had been a Slytherin and most Slytherins believed love was a weakness to exploit. Harry should have seen the love and concern Draco had for him in the other's _actions_.

One of the things Harry hated? Being interrupted when things were just getting good.

"Oh sweet Merlin!"

"_Harry_!"

"My eyes!"

"Well, this is awkward."

"We should have owled ahead."

Harry agreed with his foster father, Arthur Weasley who was staring at the ceiling like the bumpy surface was the most interesting thing he had ever seen. He could relate. He was sitting on his couch underneath Draco who had been diligently working on removing his clothing. Harry had always been impatient and already had Draco's shirt off and had been working on the buttons of his slacks.

Flushing in embarrassment, Harry looked around his disappointed boyfriend and saw Mrs. Weasley, Mr. Weasley, Ginny, Ron and Hermione all staring with their mouths open, except for Ginny who was eyeing Draco's bare chest like it was something yummy she wanted to lick. Harry openly scowled at her and glared. _Mine_, he mouthed. She shrugged and gave him an impish smile.

"Could you please make yourself decent?" Hermione snapped at the blonde still on top of Harry. Oh boy.

"Why? It's my apartment." Draco said sitting him, straddling Harry's waist.

"You have guests, you rude berk," Hermione glared, her hands on her hips. Harry absently wondered if she had an inner Mrs. Weasley or if her mother was just a lot like the Weasley matriarch.

"You weren't invited." Draco retorted, still not moving. Harry looked towards the ceiling again and would swear up and down he could see the Mona Lisa in the dots if it meant his "guests" would leave. He knew he shouldn't have installed the fireplace. He _knew _it.

"Oh but how I wish I was," Ginny said from Hermione's side licking her lips.

"Ginny!" Mrs. Weasley said appalled. Her daughter smiled sweetly and most assuredly falsely.

"How could anyone want to see that?" Ron asked properly horrified.

"I don't know it doesn't look like Harry was complaining." He hadn't been ten minutes ago that's for sure. Harry thought dryly.

"I told you, you should have nipped Harry's obsession with Draco in the bud sixth year! But nooo. Ron is stupid and doesn't know what he's talking about well now we walked on them nearly having sex! Now who's stupid?" Ron shouted at his fiancée.

"How dare you?" Hermione shouted back. "It's not like you did anything to stop it! You were always with that harlot _Lavender_."

"She wasn't a harlot, she was a nice girl!"

What happened next was a lot like bedlam erupting. Molly Weasley began to raise her voice lecturing the two men on the couch with mused hair and missing clothing, but Hermione's outraged screaming drowned her out while Ginny interjected her own amused comments, fueling the upset mother and girlfriend.

Bending down, Draco whispered into his ear and Harry suppressed his pleased shudders. "They always like that?"

"Just about." Harry agreed, enjoying the warmth of his breath. "You see the look on Arthur's face? That's his if 'I ignore this it'll all go away' look. Ron has one too. Look." Harry felt him shift so he could get a look of Ron.

"I don't understand. Granger is screaming and he's just taking it."

"Ron learned a long time ago you have to surprise Hermione because everything outside of the first barb doesn't exist." Harry shrugged and grabbed his boyfriend down. "He mostly ignores her. He's good at. I mean look at his mum."

"Huh," Draco said with some thoughtful consideration before deciding Harry's neck looked like more fun than the chaos next to their fireplace.

"I'll catch you later, okay Harry?" Ginny shouted over the din. "I'm getting my dad out of here before you guys traumatize him anymore than you've already have."

Harry made the classic shooing symbol with his hand, already busy with other things. He could only hope she'd take the other three with her or they'd get the hint and _leave_. He was not installing Floo at their new house. They could knock on the door like normal people. Damn them.

"I've done everything for you and this is how you thank me? By blaming me for the fact Harry's gay for Malfoy! God, you're an insensitive jackass!" And on and on Hermione went.

Thankfully, Molly Weasley seemed to believe lecturing her daughter on proper lady like behavior was next on her agenda because she was gone. Harry decided putting a sound barrier around their room would be a better plan than having sex in full view of Hermione and Ron.

Even if they deserved getting an eyeful for fighting and breaking into his apartment.

* * *

His next meeting with Hermione occurred at a teashop the girl loved because it was near her school. Harry also got the impression she also liked it because of the guy who made the pastries behind the counter. Not that Harry would ever say anything even if she was flirting with the guy. It wasn't his problem and it wasn't like he told her when Ron hit the waitresses when they went out. He sort of hoped they would begin seeing other people already. Sadly, they didn't care what he wanted and had set the wedding day for August fourteenth.

"Ron tells me you and Malfoy are buying a house together." Harry sighed inaudible at the disapproving tone. He mournfully put the cupcake he had been about to eat down. No way he would be able to enjoy it now.

"Yes, we are."

"I think that's completely irresponsible of you two." Hermione frowned rather darkly. "You never use to splurge on money like this Harry. Think of all the good that money could do if you donated it to a charity or hospital!" Harry barely resisted rolling his eyes. "Malfoy's changed you Harry, and not for the better. You already have a house. You don't need to waste money buying another."

"Are you done?" He asked. "Good, because I don't really care what you think I should do with my money. It's my money, and I'm going to spend on something that makes me happy. Draco's parents still live at the manor, Potter Manor is a wreck, I don't know anyone who would willingly stay at Grimmauld place and our apartment is getting cramped – and lacks security." He looked at her pointedly and she blushed slightly remembering the previous week. "Both our jobs demand more space and we're thinking about our future needs as well."

"Then just fix up Potter Manor." Hermione said. "You don't need to buy a house to fix a house up to Malfoy's needs."

"Hermione, if you're going to act like this then I'm leaving." Harry said with irritation, the insult towards Draco not unheeded. He softened. "I love you, I really do. You're one of my best friends and like my sister, but you have to let me live my life the way I want to."

He gave her a sad look and put some bills on the table to cover his tab and left her, knowing Hermione would have to come to her own conclusions instead of following his words. One of the things that made her wonderful, she needed back up information. But when it concerned her friends, it was annoying because human emotions could not be controlled by reason or logic.

* * *

A few days later, Harry's request for two weeks off was approved. His mini vacation coincided with Draco's forced leave from the potion labs so they could begin planning and remolding the house they had picked. They had already decided the hardest parts (if you asked Harry anyways) by picking the different colors of paint (blue, red, green, purple and yellow) and counter tops and other fixtures. After staring at the floors, the two men decided to simply redo all the wood floors and rip up the carpet throughout the house. Honestly, who put carpet in a bathroom? That was asking for trouble. They settled on a slightly looking worn wood that made Harry think of country houses and chickens. Melinda stopped in on them once and Harry had to call in a favor with the Ministry when she caught them in the middle of performing complex painting charms (the original plan had been to forgo all magical means, until they had tried painting the first room by hand and it got _everywhere_ but on the walls).

They had finally stopped working on the house for a lunch Harry premade at their apartment when they received guests.

"Hey, Harry, I figured you could use some help." Ginny called cheerfully in greeting.

"And what? You decided to call up your harem of boy toys?" Draco asked arching an eyebrow.

She grinned foxily at the blonde and Harry's heart swelled and remembered why he loved this girl as his sister too. His favorite sister this week by the way. "Yes. These are my boyfriends Guillermo, Crowe, Nathan and you both know Colin."

"Hi, Harry," the sandy blonde said helpfully.

"You aren't kidding?" Draco asked stunned.

Harry could relate. Dating four people at once and them being okay with that? Ginny must be some sort of love goddess.

"You only live once."Ginny smirked. "And I plan on living it up."

"With big beefy men?" Draco asked for clarification.

"Yup." She nodded happily.

"Right," Draco nodded eyeing Ginny's boyfriends appraisingly. "You guys get those muscles honestly? If so we need to rip up the floor boards in the front half of the house still and remove the countertops."

They grunted and did as Draco bid and Harry got the impression Draco was having fun bossing people around. Harry was just happy it wasn't him.

"Do they all share the same brain, Weaslette?" Draco demanded over his shoulder when the only noises two of them seemed capable of making were grunts.

"Sort of!" Ginny shouted at his disappearing back.

Harry and her watched them all leave in amusement. Only after everyone had left the kitchen did she look at Harry with a single eyebrow raised. "Well?" Hecould hear Draco direct the biggest of the four to the bathroom and telling him what to do before a horrendous screech ripped through the air.

"Well what?" Harry demanded and tried not to pout. The day had been going so well…

"I heard from Hermione Draco is corrupting you with his spoiled ways." She gave him a look only achievable by females and Draco. "Well?"

"He's not." Harry scowled. "I chose to do this because I'm investing in our future. I want to be with him for the rest of my life. I wish you guys could understand that." He sighed heavily in frustration.

"Harry? I just brought my boyfriends over to help you guys out. Trust me. I'm on your side." She rolled her eyes. "I got the biggest lecture about being a tease from mum and Hermy before I told them I was seeing them all. I get it and I respect your decision to live with Drakey. I just wanted to make sure it was for the right reasons." She smiled. "You look happier."

"I am happier." Harry said softly and smiled slightly at her. "The happiest I've ever been."

"Then that's all that matters." Ginny said simply. "The others will come around. Just give them time."

Harry smiled at her advice and resolved to follow it, especially when Draco came back into the kitchen for his lunch and kissed Harry.

Nothing mattered except their happiness.

* * *

Melinda Warren is from Charmed, she's their ancestor and founder of their magical line. I thought it'd be funny to have another super legendary magical being in the HP universe. I hope the Weasley walking in scene didn't disappoint. :) This chapter was rough. (The only ones that will be harder are going to be the Puzzleshipping one and possibly Spirk.) It would not come out for the longest time and I wanted to strangle it. But I got it! :) I tried making Harry more independent but at the same time valuing his relationships. I'm not sure it really came off the way I wanted to, but it's a start. :) And I gave Ginny a harem because I took her Harry away and decided to make it up to her.

A line that got cut out but I love: "We either traumatized him (Arthur Weasley) or he's pulling the, if I ignore you all this won't be real tactic. Ron knows how to do it really well. See how their eyes glaze when Hermione and Molly start screaming?" Harry whispered in Draco's ear.

Thank you for reading and reviewing! :)


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